GOVERNMENT WORK FOR THE FARMER. 29 



ice of the Department examined over forty million carcasses. 

 Just think of it! Forty million carcasses were inspected and 

 passed on, a great many of them in the meanwhile being con- 

 demned, simply to protect our homes against the utilization of 

 infected meat which would be dangerous to life. Last year 

 over 66,846 cars were inspected, and shippers required to put 

 them in proper shape for the shipment of animals. Last year 

 we inspected 731 ships to see that they were in proper condi- 

 tion for animals, and to see that the animals were held in the 

 proper way. The Department also prescribes regulations re- 

 garding the shipment of cattle in order that they may be 

 handled with all possible care and kindness. If they are not 

 certain loss is sure to result. The Department insists, and the 

 enforcement of these regulations makes it necessary for 

 shippers to give a much greater degree of kindness and atten- 

 tion to these matters than was formerly the case. 



In the dairy work of this great bureau there are being some 

 exceedingly interesting things brought to light. For instance, 

 in butter, of which we produce enormous quantities, an effort 

 is being made to find a foreign market. We produce more 

 butter than we want to use at home, and the question is, can 

 we ship it abroad ? Can we establish a market there ? One of 

 the great lines of work of the Department is to look into the 

 possibilities of foreign markets for the purpose of seeing if 

 we can establish trade in other places than those in which it 

 now exists. In the first place, the question to be solved is 

 whether we can ship butter. We have got to have refrigerators. 

 In connection with that, experiments have been in progress 

 at the New York and Wisconsin experiment stations where the 

 Department has been studying the keeping qualities of butter, 

 taking, for instance, a fifty-pound tub and subjecting it to 

 different temperatures to see how it keeps. They have found 

 some interesting facts. If I was to give the maximum, it 

 would be something like five degrees below zero, while it has 

 also been found that if we keep it at the ordinary temperature 

 of, say, about twenty degrees above zero, the butter deterio- 

 rates. That is simply another line in which the Department is 

 reaching out and striving to help the farmer by increasing the 

 quality and increasing the market for farm products. 



Take cheese. We are conducting experiments in connec- 

 tion with your station at Storrs, and also in connection with 



