The Sources of Animal Products 
1g. 65. Dairy cattle in western Washington, where the long, cool summers, with light but 
frequent rains. are favorable to pasturage. 
How the city is supplied with milk. Some of the milk comes from 
farms hundreds of miles from the city. Some comes from big farms 
that boast of scores of cows, and some from small farms that keep 
only two or three. On the first stage of the journey from producer 
to consumer a large can is carried to the nearest railroad station or 
electric car line. There the can is put into a milk car with many 
other cans of milk from other farms. At some central point milk 
cars from several routes are combined to form a milk-express train 
which speeds cityward. In the city the milk is bottled and dis- 
tributed to the customers. 
The collection and distribution of milk suggest a great river system. 
The widely scattered milk farms represent the innumerable sources of 
the system. The gathering of the milk in greater and greater quan- 
tities is like the joining of tiny rills to form brooks, brooks to form 
streams, and streams to form the main trunk river. Then the city is 
like the delta of ariver; as the waters of a great river reach all parts 
of the delta by means of many distributaries, so the great milk supply 
reaches all parts of the city along the routes of the distributors. 
How dairy cows are cared for. But these are matters that con- 
cern the transportation and consumption of milk. Let us go back