Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 45, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 November 1892 — About Milk. [ARTICLE]

About Milk.

When condensed milk was first introduced, thirty years ago, the idea was laughed at. The inventor carried the entire daily supply lor’New York City in a ten-quart pail, delivering it personally to patrons. 1 Ho died worth $7,000,000, made out of the business, which has grown to be a gigantic industry. lh*j processes employed are very simple, the fresh tnjlk being put Into a great copper tank -‘with a steam jacket. While it is being heated sugar is added, and the mixture is then drawn off into a vacuum tank, where eva oraticn is produced by heat. The vacuum tank Will hold, perhacs. 9,00.) quarts. It has a glass window at the top, through which the operator in charge looks from time, to time. He can tell by the appearance of the milk when the time has arrived to shut off the steam, and this must be done at just the right moment, else the batch will be spoiled. Next the condensed milk is drawn into forty-quart cans, which are set in very cold sprjig water, where they are made to revolve rapidly by a mechanical contrivance, in order that their contents may cool evenly. When the water doesnot hippen to be cold enough, lee is put in to bring it down to tne proper temperature. Finally the tin cans, of market size, are filled with the milx by a machine, which pours into each one exactly sixteen ounces automatically, one girl shoving the cans beneath the spout, wh le another removes them as fast as they are filled. People in cities nowadays use condensed miik largely in preference to the uncondensed, regarding it as more desirable, because of the careful supervis on maintained by the companies over the dairies from which they get their supplies. For their consumption the product is delivered unsweetened, but even in this condition, it will last fresh two or three times as long as the ordinary milk, by reasen of the boiling to which it has been subjected. Milk fresh from the cow contains 88 per cent, of water, condensed milk 28 per cent. The latter is fed to a great many babies, partly on account of the difficulty found in obtaining pure milk from the average milkman. It may be as well to mention here that the one-cow’s milk business is a swindle and a delusion. To supply milk to customers regularly from the same eow is not possible in practice, though, perhaps, It might pay to serve a single tamilv in this way at the rate of 50 cents a quart. Experts assert that mixed milk is more wholesome for tire consumer than milk from one cow, inasmuch as the yield of a single beast varies from day to day.