MAEKETS AND EUEAL ORGANIZATION. 387 



different subprojects, and should furnish other useful data. Pre- 

 liminary studies of the marketing of farm-prepared meats have been 

 made and a comprehensive survey begun, with a view to ascertaining 

 the conditions and methods that have proved most favorable to this 

 plan of marketing in the various States. A plan has been devised for 

 estimating the number of feeding cattle and lambs in producing 

 sections, the purpose being to aid in distributing the marketing of 

 such stock more evenly and to bring producer and feeder into closer 

 contact. Field investigations have been conducted preparatory to 

 the inauguration of the plan during the coming stock-shipping 

 season, and it is proposed also to include as soon as practicable the 

 reporting of the number of fat stock destined for shipment from 

 feed lots and grazing districts. Aid has been given in connec- 

 tion with marketing problems in various States, including Col- 

 orado, Wyoming, South Carolina, and Louisiana. An extensive sur- 

 vey has been made of live-stock marketing conditions in Colorado 

 and Wj'oming, and arrangements have been made for the placing of a 

 live-stock marketing specialist in Louisiana. A cumulative informa- 

 tion file, devoted to the marketing of live stock, meats, and their by- 

 products, and related topics, was established at the beginning of the 

 fiscal year to be maintained as a continuous feature of this work; 

 also a card directory of stock growers, feeders, dealers, corporations, 

 officials, and others concerned with the various phases of the subject. 

 The work of this project is under the immediate charge of Mr. 

 L. D. Hall, assisted by Messrs. F. M. Simpson, S. W. Doty, Gilbert 

 Gusler, and J. A. Kice. 



JLARKETING DAIRY PRODUCTS. 



The principal work under this project was devoted to the market- 

 ing of butter. The office now has in its files tabulations, photographs, 

 and illustrative statistical charts on many phases of the butter mar- 

 ket. Special attention has been given to the question of costs, to 

 market grades and standards established by the organizations of the 

 wholesale trade, and the various rules of the butter and egg commit- 

 tees of these organizations. 



COOPERATIVE INVESTIGATIONS. 



Lender the cooperative arrangements with the University of Minne- 

 sota, the State dairy and food commission of that State, and the 

 Dairy Division of the Bureau of Animal Industry, over 500 farmers' 

 creameries, located in different parts of every county in the State, 

 were visited and other creameries were reached by means of a ques- 

 tionnaire. From a total of 634 reports, detailed information re- 

 garding their organizations, methods and costs of collecting cream 

 for manufacture into butter, methods of preparing butter for the 

 markets, and selling agreements under which the butter is marketed 

 was compiled and is now in form for analysis. 



Contemporaneously with these investigations some of the large 

 centralizing creameries operating in Minnesota were also visited, and 

 information along the following lines was obtained from 15 : Costs 

 of obtaining cream by difTerent systems of buying; prices paid for 



