e earliest pure-bred stock in the area. Photo
courtesy of Louise McNair Ryder.]

[Illustration: The interior of a large and well-maintained dairy barn on
the farm of Holden and Ray Harrison. The barn could house over 50 cows.
Photo courtesy of Holden and Ray Harrison.]

The milk which traveled to Herndon was strained to remove any extraneous
matter and cooked to about 35 deg. F to retard spoilage and reduce the risk
of spreading bacterial infections. This was a real problem until
mechanized refrigerators became available, and the farmers had to use
considerable ingenuity to keep their milk chilled. Some, like the
Middletons, kept the milk in the well overnight, and Wilson McNair wrote
that his family stored the milk in tall cans set in cold water.
Occasionally more drastic action was needed. "Can you imagine going out
to Herndon and getting great big chunks of ice and putting it in a
washing tub and setting a can of milk in and keeping it cool all night
long?" queried Joseph Beard.[9]

Milk earmarked for home use underwent the further process of separating
the thick cream from the rest of the milk. In the days before mechanical
separators the milk had to stand several hours for the cream to rise,
and it was then skimmed by hand or the milk drawn off from the bottom of
a can with a spigot. Mechanical separators streamlined this task by
allowing the milk to be separated while still warm, using centrifugal
action to bring the heavier cream particles to the bottom of the
machine.

While the farmers sat down to breakfast the roads started filling with
wagons and trucks bringing the day's milk from the entire area. Like
Alexandria and Falls Church, the county's other major shipping centers,
Herndon served what was known as a "milkshed" area, that is a community
whose milk could be transported to that locality without spoiling. Here
too the freshness of the milk was of crucial concern. Herndon, with its
electric cars on the Washington and Old Dominion Railroad, served most
of the county's Dranesville district; however, Floris' close proximity
to Herndon gave it an added advantage, for even packed in ice water,
milk could easily spoil during the sultry summer months.[10]

A farmer with a good-sized herd such as John Middleton would haul eight
or more ten-gallon cans of milk to the depot depending on the time of
year. The milk was transported in a light wagon with two horses, which
generally held only one farm's milk, tho