1898 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
267 
WHAT I SEE AND HEAR. 
Buttermilk in the City.— Plenty of “ buttermilk ” 
s for sale at restaurants, street stands and cqrts, dur¬ 
ing the Summer ; but much of it would have difficulty 
in proving an honest parentage. At the restaurants 
and hotels, a pretty good quality of buttermilk, evi¬ 
dently made in the regular, old-fashioned way, can be 
had for five cents per glass; but most of that from 
the street stands and carts is of dubious origin. It is 
said to be made from sour milk churned over, and its 
appearance and taste certainly bear out the belief. 
But one mustn’t expect too much for three cents a 
glass. In Summer, there are numerous two-wheeled 
carts fitted out for retailing milk by the glass. They 
usually sell sweet milk, buttermilk and milk shake. 
The last is a combination of milk and the preferred 
flavor, mixed in the glass, the glass then being fas¬ 
tened firmly into a machine by which, by means of 
gearing, it is whirled rapidly into a regular emulsion. 
Sometimes, when the milk is cold and the flavor fresh 
and good, this milk shake is very refreshing, but often 
it is far otherwise. Buttermilk is better than sweet 
milk as a thirst quencher, as it is more acid. 
X X X 
Milk Cans for all Purposes. —Our artist has been 
making observations on the uses to which milk cans 
past their days of usefulness in their original vocation, 
are put. Fig. 117, page 271, tells the story. The bill¬ 
poster finds one convenient as a receptacle for his 
paste. Perched on a handcart, it serves to carry water, 
or with a row of small holes punched around the bot¬ 
tom, does duty as a sprinkler. It was not intended 
originally to become intimately acquainted with 
water, unless in a diluted form, but here it is used to 
catch the rainwater from the spout. Another was 
used in lieu of a flower pot, for a large plant, while 
still another was a receptable for garbage. Probably 
old milk cans find their greatest use in the city along 
the line of the last-named use ; they are used for coal 
ashes, clam and oyster shells, old papers and refuse of 
every kind. One was in use in heating coal tar, being 
propped upon some paving stones, and having a fire 
under it. One man used one for holding chicken feed, 
others for vegetables, etc. Many of these cans are 
lost before they have reached a condition that would 
warrant their being diverted from their intended use. 
There is a law concerning the stealing of milk cans, 
and some firms make a business of looking up lost 
cans and restoring them to their owners. 
X X X 
City Milk Retailing. —The larger part of the milk 
delivered in this city is sold in bottles at eight cents 
per quart. This looks like a big margin between pro¬ 
ducer and consumer, but present methods of distribu¬ 
tion are costly, and the expense of aerating, cooling, 
bottling, etc., as practiced by the firms that supply 
the choicest milk, is considerable. Still, a great deal 
of milk is sold for half this price, largely through the 
small groceries. Many of these sell milk by measure, 
direct from the cans, the buyer carrying it home. 
These grocers can do this at a very small margin, as 
the expense is light, simply measuring out the milk. 
Large numbers of these grocers have signs out offer¬ 
ing this milk at four cents, and I have seen several in 
the Summer offering it at three cents. These dealers 
are of great help to the poorer classes, who could 
scarcely afford to pay the higher prices of the regular 
dealers. Many of these grocers also sell milk by the 
glass for two or three cents, and there are some places 
where it may be had for one cent per glass. The much- 
talked-of milk syndicate purposed to do away with 
these dealers. On the other hand, there are some 
dealers who have a special trade who get much more 
than eight cents a quart for their milk, but these are 
the specialists and are limited in number. 
X X X 
The Milk Syndicate. —Not much has been heard of 
this so-called Milk Trust for some time. When The 
R. N.-Y. published an interview with its representa¬ 
tive last Fall, it was positively asserted that its rub¬ 
ber-tired wagons would be delivering milk to con¬ 
sumers in this city by the beginning of this year. 
Three months of the year are gone, and we haven’t 
seen them yet, though I have been assured within the 
past two weeks that the service would begin April 1. 
But the scheme has not been abandoned, and it is 
pretty certain that its promoters are still at work 
trying to perfect the organization. The greatest 
obstacle, so far as the city end of the business is con¬ 
cerned, seems to be in the difficulty of making arrange¬ 
ments with such firms as the Bordens, the Anglo- 
Swiss Co., and others of this character. These large 
concerns have complete organizations, with every 
facility for carrying on an immense business ; in short, 
as one dealer expressed it, they have a good enough 
trust of their own. This same dealer expressed the 
belief that practically the entire milk business would 
gradually be concentrated into the hands of two 
or three of these large firms, and that, eventually, 
these might combine. But whatever our ideas of 
the merits of these great combinations, there can 
be no question as to the economy of distribution 
of which they are capable. The distribution could be 
much more economically done by them than by exist¬ 
ing arrangements. For instance, now perhaps 20 milk 
wagons drive through a single block, and 20 drivers 
deliver milk at a single apartment house. Under the 
proposed arrangement, with the work properly 
arranged, a single wagon only would be needed 
A CUBIC FOOT OF BUTTER. Fig. 115. 
through any given street, and a single driver could 
serve the BO, 40 or 50 families in a single tenement as 
well as, or even better than,they are served by the score 
of drivers under the present plan. There are other 
advantages, also, but the economy possible is obvious. 
Whether this economy would work to the advantage 
of the consumer, the producer, or both, is the question. 
X X X 
The Australian Butter Box for Exporters. —The 
prevailing low prices of butter are causing an increased 
interest in the export trade. The experiments con¬ 
ducted by the United States Department of Agricul¬ 
ture along these lines during the past year, have also 
attracted attention in that direction. But there is 
considerable to learn about this business. The Cen¬ 
tral and South American countries and the West In¬ 
dies ought to be good customers for our butter ; but 
the complaint is made that our butter is not of good 
quality. As one correspondent puts it, “ they get 
cooking butter from the United States, and table but¬ 
ter from Europe.” But one of our best customers for 
butter, if we can furnish just the quality required, 
and then convince the buyers of the fact, is Great 
Britain. Our chief competitors in that market have 
HOW NOT TO PACK BUTTER. Fig. 116. 
been Denmark and Australia. The former has fur¬ 
nished butter of a quality that tickled John Bull’s 
palate, and the latter country, although furnishing 
butter about the quality of which there are great dif¬ 
ferences of opinion, has the advantage of being a 
colony of Great Britain, and perhaps the butter- 
makers know better just the tastes and desires 
of the mother country. In the first place, the 
British markets require a butter that differs some¬ 
what from that required by our markets. It should 
be very solid and waxy, with less color than is gener¬ 
ally used for the American market, but absolutely 
uniform in color, and more lightly salted—about one- 
half ounce to the pound. The Australians have fur¬ 
nished a package that pleases the English market, 
and the fact that the first package of the kind was 
used there, has given it the name of the Australian 
butter box. Many experiments have been made in 
making this box in this country. It seems a difficult 
matter to get it just right in material and makeup, but 
Yankee ingenuity is bound to get there in the end. In 
size, the box must be 12 x 12 x 12 inches, inside meas¬ 
ure. This must contain just 56 pounds net of butter 
when stripped in the British markets; to do this, it 
is said that it must contain 57 pounds when packed. 
The sides of the box must be of single boards, five- 
eighths inch thick, firmly nailed together, though 
dovetailing together would, probably, be preferable. 
The difficulty has been to get suitable wood ; it must 
be odorless, white, clean and free from any tendency 
to warp. The boxes should be lined with the best 
quality of parchment paper before filling, that the 
butter may be kept perfectly, and so that it may be 
stripped more easily. A cube of stripped butter from 
one of these boxes, is shown at Fig. 115, reproduced 
from the New York Produce Review. The English 
like the weight—56 pounds—as it is just half of their 
hundredweight, and they like the shape because it is 
handy for retailers to cut from. 
X X X 
Disgracefully Packed Butter.— At Fig. 116, is re¬ 
produced an illustration from the New York Produce 
Review and American Creamery, which was made 
from a photograph of part of a shipment of 24 tubs of 
butter received by a wholesale butter house. It is 
almost impossible to believe that any buttermaker 
would be guilty of packing butter in such a disrepu¬ 
table fashion ; yet the photograph reproduced the ap¬ 
pearance exactly, that is, so far as the packing is con¬ 
cerned. The butter came from a well-known Minne¬ 
sota creamery, that is shipping 50 to 60 tubs per week. 
The lot from which the butter shown was taken con¬ 
sisted of 24 tubs. The quality was pretty good, but 
there was a great variation in color; some was al¬ 
most white, some colored too much, and as the Review 
man puts it, “ both kinds were packed together, much 
in the order of a layer cake, and of just about as much 
use to any one who handles fancy butter.” But 
worst of all was the packing. The butter was, evi¬ 
dently, thrown in haphazard, the top pounded down 
and smoothed off, and the cavities filled up with brine 
to make up for the weight. The tubs were of regular 
size, which should have held 60 pounds of butter each 
net, but actual weighing of the butter showed that 
they fell short from 10 to 18 pounds each. The pic¬ 
ture shows the butter stripped, and it is difficult to 
conceive of a more disreputable looking lot than this. 
It seems impossible that a buttermaker could have 
been in his right mind to put up such stuff. Still 
plenty of goods are found in market that are nearly 
as deficient in one way and another. f. ii. v. 
Two sudden deaths by ptomaine poisoning recently 
occurred in New York upon the same day ; one case 
was supposed to result from eating fish, the other 
from oysters. The ptomaines are animal alkaloids, 
which accompany putrefaction, and to this class of 
poisons must be credited the serious or perhaps fatal 
illness sometimes occurring as the result o eating 
ice cream, old cheese, or some form of milk. The 
Medical Record has recorded cases of milk poisoning 
attributed to the use of Pastern ized milk, and from 
this, arrives at the conclusion that milk is safe as 
infants’ food only when sterilized. It must not be 
inferred, h.wever, that cases of poisoning following 
the use of some special article of food are always the 
result of its unwholesome condition. We have met 
several cases where acute poisoning resulted from 
eating freshly-caught bluefish ; one case where any 
form of shellfish caused nausea, profuse perspiration, 
and excessive swelling of the entire body ; one victim 
who cannot eat strawberries without headache, faint¬ 
ness, and the appearance of swollen red blotches all 
over the body, and another who is made seriously ill 
by the ordinarily wholesome apple. There is much 
truth in the homely saying that what is one man’s 
meat is another’s poison. 
BUSINESS BITS. 
In reply to inquiries, we would say that we would not send 
money in advance to Geo. W. Murphy, Quincy, Ill., for incu¬ 
bators. Come to think about it, we would not send him money 
for incubators anyway. 
No dairy house is complete in its equipments without a supply 
of parchment butter paper for wrapping and covering butter 
packages. It can be secured from most dairy supply houses, but 
is manufactured by A. G. Elliot <fe Co., Philadelphia, Pa. They 
also do special printing, if required. 
We are frequently asked for the name and address of a New 
York City dairy supply house. In answer to these inquiries, we 
give the name of J. S. Biesecker, 59 Murray Street, New York. 
Mr. Biesecker has now been at this address and in the dairy sup¬ 
ply business for several years. From a modest beginning in one 
corner of the first floor, he now occupies the full floor and base¬ 
ment. He deserves the success he has made. He handles only 
good goods, and his first customers are sure to return for more 
goods. We are glad to say so much in the interests of both Mr. 
Biesecker and those dairymen who want to make their purchases 
in New York. 
