1893 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
577 
FAT FOUR-CENT MILK FOR NEW YORK. 
HERE IS HELPFUL BENEVOLENCE 
How it all Came About. 
The problem of transporting and delivering milk in 
good condition, especially in hot weather, is, if any¬ 
thing, more difficult of solution than its production. 
No other food product is so susceptible to contaminat¬ 
ing surroundings, or is so quickly changed and rend¬ 
ered unfit for use by unfavorable temperature or con¬ 
ditions of the atmosphere. Great advances have been 
made in handling it, and most cities are now supplied 
with pure milk of excellent quality delivered in good 
condition promptly from the dair’es. But this costs 
money. Dr. Brush of Mount Vernon, previously 
referred to in The R N.-Y, supplies what he claims is 
the best milk that can be made, but he gets 15 cents 
per quart for it. From the Mountain Side Farm at 
Mahwah, N. J., described in these columns a few 
months since, a superior quality of milk from regularly 
inspected Jerseys, is delivered to customers in this 
city at 12 cents per quart. Our friend Francisco is 
making a great advance on his former excellent 
methods, but 12 cents a quart is his price. So we see 
that good milk is possible to the consumer, but it’s 
costly as well. 
But t remained for Mr. Nathan Straus to bring to 
the poorer classes in this city, the ones who most 
need it, the best of milk at the lowest possible price. 
Mr. Straus attracted notice last winter by his scheme of 
selling to the poor who usually buy it by the bucket¬ 
ful, their coal at wholesale prices, at a time when the 
dealers were squeezing them to the last extremity. 
He doesn’t believe in giving them what they can pay 
for, and thus making paupers of them, but he does 
believe in selling them the necessities of life at cost 
prices. With the view of applying this principle to 
milk, he last spring established a depot for its distri¬ 
bution on the dock at the foot of East Third Street. 
Here I found the manager and his assistants, and he 
kindly showed me over the building, and explained 
the manner of handling and distributing the milk. 
The building is a cheap one of matched lumber, per¬ 
haps 50 feet long and 16 feet wide. 
Where the Milk Comes From. 
“Where do you get your supply of milk?” I asked 
the manager whom I found in the salesroom at one 
end. 
“ From the herd of P. E. Sanford, in Orange County, 
New York.” 
“ Is it a specially selected herd, or composed of just 
ordinary farm cows?” 
“ It was selected after an examination by a veteri¬ 
narian who was sent from the city for this express 
purpose. He reported that it was one of the finest 
herds of cows, so far as health and general thrift were 
concerned, that he had ever seen.” 
“ In what shape is the milk delivered to you ? ” 
“ In cans, once a day. Come in here and I’ll show 
you where we put it.” The manager led the way into 
an apartment containing two immense chests or ice¬ 
boxes in which the cans of milk are placed and sur¬ 
rounded with ice until needed. “ There is room for 
another ice-box here, but we haven’t needed it yet.” 
“ What price do you get for your milk ? ” 
“ Foui cents per quart, and two cents per pint for 
the common milk. We try to introduce the milk dilu¬ 
tion as much as possible. That is intended for sick 
babies, or those whose stomachs are too weak to stand 
the whole milk.” 
An Essay on Sterilizing. 
“ Do you sterilize the milk ? ” 
“ Only the dilution. Come in here, and I will show 
you the method of doing this. For the dilution we 
use 12 ounces of sugar of milk, half a pint of lime 
water, one gallon of filtered water, and one gallon of 
miik. We put it in these bottles holding six ounces, 
or about one-sixth of a quart each. They are then put 
into these racks ” (a bunch of deep tin cups fastened 
together by tin strips), “and put into the boilers, 
which, you see, are much like wash boilers. These 
are heated by gas, and the water is just at the boiling 
point when the bottles are lowered into the boiler. 
The cover is put on, the gas is turned off, and they are 
left in half an hour. It is the steam that does the 
work. The bottles are left uncorked until they are 
taken out, when they are closed by rubber stoppers. 
At first we put in the stoppers before heating, but we 
managed to break most of the bottles. This is the 
system of sterilizing recommended by Pasteur. The 
milk is not boiled, but it is heated sufficiently to de¬ 
stroy all disease germs or bacteria without killing the 
life of the milk, as is done when it is boiled. After 
being taken from the boilers, the bottles of milk are 
cooled in water, and are then put in tanks of ice- 
water in the next room until wanted.” 
“ What price do you get for this dilution ?” 
“ Six cents per quart, or one cent per bottle.” 
“ Do you require a deposit on the bottles containing 
the milk ?” 
“ Yes, we wouldn’t get many of them back if we 
didn’t. The furnishing of these bottles is quite a big 
expense. They are all thoroughly washed when 
returned, then they are boiled, and afterwards put 
into this oven and baked at a temperature of 120 
degrees C. This makes them thoroughly clean.” 
How the Buyers Take to It. 
‘ How do the people take to the scheme of getting 
pure milk at a low price ?” 
“ Oh, they patronize us pretty well, but many of the 
dealers who sell from the stores have put their price 
at four cents, and many of the people * ill buy of them 
rather than come down here. They don’t know the 
difference in milk, and many don’t care to learn. 
Some of them tell us that our milk doesn’t have so 
much cream on it as the store milk ; that the latter 
has cream on it an inch thick. Of course it is con¬ 
densed milk doctored up. The regular dealers can’t 
sell milk for four cents a quart, because they must 
make something to live, while we don’t care to get any¬ 
thing out of it except the cost of the miik. We do 
quite a large trade in milk by the glass, at a cent a 
glass. This is a public dock, and a great many boys 
come down here and patronize us pretty well.” 
“ Have the inspectors visited you yet ?” 
“Yes they came down here with a great rush soon 
after we opened. They pretended to come of their 
own option, but I think they were sent by some of the 
dealers. They made a great show of testing the milk, 
but soon went off without saying anything.” 
I tested the milk. It is as fine milk as I ever drank, 
and I have drank a good deal. I sat in the little sales¬ 
room at the end of the building and saw the women 
come up with a lot of empty bottles, return them, and 
take away with them others filled with milk. The 
boys came up and for a cent a glass got just as good 
milk as Vanderbilt gets from his Jerseys at Oakdale. 
Some came with pails for the milk, thus avoiding any 
deposit for bottles. It is a grand thing for the poor in 
this most densely populated tenement district. It 
does away with the middleman’s profit, but not with 
the middleman. Best of all, it furnishes a pure and 
healthful beverage as well as a nutritious food to the 
class who generally get the fag end of everything. If 
the people among whom the work is done, and who 
pn fit by it, do not appreciate it, and gather instruc¬ 
tion from the methods as well, they don’t live up to 
their privileges. Better were it for the poor of our 
cities were there more Nathan Strauses. f. h. y. 
THE PROSPECT. 
The new commission established by the Connecticut 
Legislature to inspect the peach orchards of the State 
is becoming very unpopular in many places. Accord¬ 
ing to the provisions of the law, the commissioner can 
examine any orchard and cut down at will any peach 
tree showing, in his opinion, any signs of the yellows, 
and the owner has no redress. What redress should he 
want, until some remedy for the disease has been dis¬ 
covered ? A late report of the Department of Agricul¬ 
ture says that extra fertilization of the orchard has no 
beneficial effect in preventing or getting rid of the 
malady, and as there is no known remedy, why should 
an orchardist object to the removal of trees which are 
a danger to his own interests as well as to those of his 
neighbors who own peach trees ? 
X X X 
The bicycle is likely to prove as dangerous a rival 
to the saddle horse as electricity to the draft horse. 
In all civilized countries it has already appeared in 
multitudinous numbers in civil life; and the armies of 
all civilized countries are rapidly recognizing in it an 
important auxiliary in warfare. Indeed man on the 
bicycle can vastly outtravel and outlast man on horse¬ 
back. The winner in the famous military ride last 
fail between Vienna and Berlin covered the distance 
in 71 hours 40 minutes, and his horse was thoroughly 
spent at the end ; while Fischer, who lately won a 
bicycle race over the same road, accomplished the 
task in 31 hours, and was comparatively fresh at the 
close. Regular tra : ns take 16 hours to make the trip, 
and Fischer’s speed averaged 11 % miles an hour. 
Still more wonderful was the performance in another 
late race between Vienna and Klagenfurt, when the 
distance—236 miles—was covered by a party of sol¬ 
diers equipped to the bicycle military standard, in 17 
hohrs 1 minute, or at the rate of 14 miles an hour! 
The Russian army has adopted the bicycle to a very 
large extent, and in spite cf the inferior condition of 
the roads, the exploits of the soldiers on it surpass 
those of even Cossacks on horseback. Military ex¬ 
periments with it in Italy give the utmost satisfaction, 
and in England, where its use has until lately been 
confined to the volunteers and militia, it has just been 
made a part of the equipment of the regular army. 
Hitherto it has been used mainly for scouting and 
carrying dispatches, but the riders are fully equipped 
for skirmish or battle, and as the supply of horses for 
military purposes is somewhat scant in all European 
countries except Russia, the bicycle, on account of 
its helping as a substitute in this direction, as well as 
fcr its excellence in other respects, is hailed as a god¬ 
send. % % t 
Less than usual has been heard this year about the 
Gipsy Moth ; but the pest still flourishes in an area of 
over 200 square miles in the eastern part of Massa¬ 
chusetts. Were it not for the vigorous action of the 
State Agricultural Society, no doubt the nuisance 
would by this time have extended its ravages over 
most of the State and into neighboring States also. 
The State Legislature has, in all, appropriated $275,000 
for its destruction, and the Agricultural Society 
employs 100 men in fighting it, by spraying Paris green 
in large quantities on the infected trees and grass. 
The good work has been persistently going on during 
the last five years and favorable results have been 
especially notable for the first time this season. The 
Legislature and Society deserve well of the farmers, 
not only of Massachusetts, but of the rest of the 
country also for the generosity and vigor with which 
they have been fighting to limit the ravages of the pest 
and ultimately exterminate it. 
X X X 
An early effort is to be made to pass the Anti-Option 
Bill through Congress in much the same form as that 
introduced by Representative Hatch of Missouri during 
the last session, and which would have passed both 
Houses were it not for the filibustering tactics of its 
opponents. As it was, it received an overwhelming 
majority in the House and a majority of 11 in the 
Senate, but failed to receive the two-thirds vote 
necessary to suspend the rules in the House on March 
1, just before the close of Congress. The enemies of 
the law are hopeful that the farmers of the country 
will be less urgent in their pressure for its passage 
and consequently that some of the Senators and 
Representatives who supported it formerly will fail 
to do so in future. Then again, they are resolved to 
have it referred to a hostile committee in each House, 
so that it may be sa'ely pigeon-holed, and in case of 
failure in this direction they say that Secretaiy of 
Agriculture Merton will use his best efforts against it, 
while Secretary Rusk strongly favored it. Finally, 
even if it should pass both Houses, they declare that 
President Cleveland is absolutely certain to veto it. 
The advocates of the measure, however, are confident 
and intend to pu-h it str- nuously through Congress in 
the expectation that so strong an expression of public 
opinion may be evoked, that it will ultimately become 
a law in spite of all obstacles. 
X X t 
During the last session of the Dominion Parlia¬ 
ment, the member for Halifax introduced a bill to in¬ 
corporate the Maritime Sugar Manufacturing Com¬ 
pany, which was in reality a Trust embracing all the 
sugar refineries in the Maritime Provinces. There 
was such a strong objection to the monopoly, how¬ 
ever, that he finally withdrew the measure, but later 
an effort was made to secure the passage of a similar 
bill through the Nova Scotia Legislature, but it met 
with a like fate. It is now announced that the same 
man has secured in England the incorporaten of the 
Acadia Sugar Company, with a capital of $3,000,000, 
and the right to operate in Canada, although the new 
organization is precisely the same as the Trust, the 
incorpo ation of which had been refused by the Do¬ 
minion and Provincial Legislatures. To show the 
drift of its operations, it is announced that the Nova 
Scotia S igar Refinery is to receive stock in the new 
organization amounting to $1,200,000, although its 
present holdings are worth only $300,000, and the 
other members of the monopo y are to be treated 
with equal generosity, while the public must pay big 
interest on the “ water ” thus injected into the stock. 
There are numerous emphatic expressions of surprise 
that an incorporation evidently objectionable to the 
Dominion and Provincial Legislatures should be easily 
secured in England and prcwe legal in Canada, espe¬ 
cially in view of the Dominion Anti-Combine Liw. 
Indeed, a question may be raised as to the legality 
of English incorporation acting without consent 
within our neignbor’s territory. 
BUSINESS BITS. 
Why Isn’t the Badger corn harvester a good Idea? It must cer¬ 
tainly save backaches ai.d do rapid work besides. I Z. Merrlam, 
Whitewater, Wls., will send descriptions of it. 
That well-known nursery firm, Green’s Nursery Company, Roches¬ 
ter, N. Y , calls special attention to its new red raepoerry, Royal 
Church. It Is well to try what this nouse recommends so highly. 
House carts are handy on the farm. One can get them into places 
where a wagon cannot be taken, and they can be turned in the length 
of a horse. By all means, however, get the wide tires. Hons :n & Co., 
Tatamy, Pa., furnlsn carts wltn wide and narrow tires, as desired. 
The manufacturers of the Heller riding harrow show contidenee 
In it when they offer to return one’s money If he doesn't Use the harrow 
alter using it. It seems to be cons'ructed on the right principle to 
thoroughly pulverize the soli. They are making special prices now. 
Particulars may be had from the Heller Manufacturing Company 
Montclair, N. J. 
Hay Is being shipped to Europe this year In much larger quantities 
than ever before. It Is baled, of course, and no do bt the Increased 
exportation will create a greater demand lor hay presses. Readers of 
The R. N -Y. have already asked wnere they could get presses to suit 
their peculiar wants. The Collins Plow Co., Quincy, Ill., make all 
kinds and sizes, and we think can satisfy almost any customer’s w ants 
In this line. 
