Milk churn

A milk churn is a tall, conical or cylindrical container for the transportation of milk. It is sometimes referred to as a milk can.

Milk was originally distributed in 'pails', a lidded bucket with a handle. Often two pails would be carried on either end of a wooden yoke. Once the railways started carrying milk, the pail proved less than ideal as it was top-heavy and tended to spill. Dairy farmers used a tall conical wooden container - a butter churn - to 'churn' the milk into butter, and this proved to be preferable for the railways to transport. It held a lot more milk (about seventeen gallons) and its conical shape made it less likely to spill or topple over. These wooden churns were intrinsically heavy, and starting in the 1850s a steel version was introduced and soon became the standard. The usage of the word 'churn' was retained for describing these containers, although they were not themselves used for 'churning' butter.