If received fresh and warm from the cow, milk should at once be strained through absorbent cotton or several thicknesses of cheese-cloth into wide-mouthed bottles or glass jars and placed in running water or ice water to cool as quickly as possible. If obtained from the milkman it may be left in the bottle in which it is received. The practice of delivering milk “loose,” dipping it from the wagon, should not be permitted, and is fast being abolished. Public safety demands that it should be bottled on the farm or in the creamery or milk station under sanitary conditions. =Keep the Milk Cool.=—If the milk when delivered at the house is not cold enough to keep sweet as long as desired, it should, we repeat, be placed in ice water or cold running water until thoroughly cooled. Even if the air is cold, in the ice box, for instance, the milk cannot be cooled quickly enough without water. After it has been cooled in water it may be put in the ice box. In most ice boxes the temperature is allowed to rise higher than is generally supposed, and it is better to keep the milk bottle next to the ice than in the food compartments. [Illustration: A clean ice box ] Milk and cream easily absorb flavors from the air and should not be kept in open vessels next to other food. Any housekeeper knows how quickly milk or cream will be tainted by standing in the same compartment with onions or muskmelons; if the bottle is not covered, milk may also be contaminated by other less noticeable but more harmful vapors from nearby products. Let the milkman furnish you with some extra milk bottle caps, or cover your milk bottle with an inverted tumbler. As has been shown in previous chapters, milk is a favorable soil for all sorts of germs and bacteria to grow in. It must therefore be kept from contamination with the utmost care, and everything that comes in contact with it must be scrupulously clean.