part 3

20 It is only in the last two centuries that great numbers of people have been able to live far from their food supply, with thousands of people in one place doing the same sort of work. High buildings like those pictured on the next page are being put up in more and more great cities today in greater and greater numbers. They are apartment houses, which sometimes have hundreds of different families living under one roof. There may be as many as twenty or thirty floors in one apartment house, with homes for fifteen or twenty families on a floor.

21 Hundreds of families may make their homes in one apartment house. In these stores people who live in the city can buy food, clothing and supplies of everything they need. Some stores sell food, some sell clothing and some sell furniture. In most cities there are great stores which sell almost everything. They supply these families with what they need.

22 People in apartment houses have no place to keep a supply of food. They may have enough food in an icebox to take them through a day or two, but on most days they buy meat and milk and fruit and other things they need from a store near their home. Many families have supplies of milk and other foods sent to their houses every day. People with children in the family may buy four or five quarts of milk at a time. Here is a family with five persons in it: a husband, a wife and their three children. The man is the woman's husband and she is his wife. They have been married ten years.

23 A milkman put the milk outside their door in the early morning. Milkmen started their work in a great city before it was light. In some parts of the world milk is measured in gallons. Milk is put up in pint and quart bottles or in cartons. In other parts of the world milk is measured in liters. A liter is a little more than a quart.

24 In some factories food is put into cans. It is canned. These are machines in a canning factory. Most foods today can be bought in cans. Food stores sell canned soups, meats, fruit and vegetables. Food is canned to keep it from the air. When air can get at it, it quickly goes bad—if it is not kept very cold. Canned food that has gone bad is a poison. Bad food is very bad for people; it poisons them. If they take much of it they may die. After a person dies, he is dead.

25 People can have only a few cans of meat and fruit and other things "on hand," as we say, on their shelves. They may have a cupboard with two or three shelves of canned food, but most people have no room for more than that. If supplies do not come into the city day by day their supply of canned food is quickly used up. Many solid and liquid foods are kept in cans. Gas for cooking can be canned and piped to the gas cooker from the can for use.