No. 6. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 291 



except in some cases where they use wheat inidlings or wheat bran. 

 This was the condition of affairs, as we found tliem in Pennsylvania 

 when the Legislature met last year. A number of feed bills were 

 started in the Legislature, but after they had been in for some time 

 a conference was called by the Agricultural Committee of the House, 

 of the millers, feed dealers, farmers and all that were interested in 

 this legislation, and after giving the matter a great deal of study, 

 the bill that is now on the statute books, which became a law on 

 May 28th, 1907, is the one that we are working under. All parties 

 who were interested in the framing of this law were working for 

 the best interests of the farmers and feed dealers. 



The bill made a number of changes. I might mention in regard 

 to sampling, the law states that the sample must be taken from 

 four separate packages and thoroughly mixed and one sample left 

 with the dealer and the others sent to the Secretary of Agriculture. 

 It also provides that there is a variation in the analysis, so as to 

 meet the climatic conditions that may exist in the growing of 

 grains. It also provides that any citizen of the Commonwealth can 

 send a sample to have aualj'zed by sending a fee of $1.00. I would 

 state, under this provision, that 293 samples have been received 

 and analyzed since August 1, 1907, when the new law went into 

 effect. The new law provides that the crude fiber must be given on 

 the analysis and the composition or ingredients from which the feed 

 is compounded. This is a very important provision. The farmer 

 ma}^ not understand the full meaning of protein or fat, as he sees 

 it on the package, but when he reads that it contains weed seeds, 

 rice hulls, peanut hulls and substances that he knows do not contain 

 any feed value, he will soon say to his dealer, I do not wish to buy 

 food of that kind, and by this means we will be able to correct an 

 imposition that is being imposed on the Pennsylvania farmers and 

 stock feeders. 



Another section of the law regulates the manufacture and sale of 

 patented or trade marked poultry foods. This involves such prep- 

 arations as stock foods, poultry foods, and names that indicate that 

 they are a food, or feed or poultry food for domestic animals. 

 A number of the farmers are claiming that their goods are only for 

 medicinal purposes, and are removing from their labels anything 

 that may designate them, as a feed or food. There is a great fraud 

 in the composition of these preparations. The base of a number of 

 them is wheat middlings, and the analysis shows that the other in- 

 gredients contained therein can be bought in any drug store at a 

 small cost. Almost any of these preparations can be manufac- 

 tured at a cost not exceeding thirty dollars per ton, and they sell 

 from 90 to 400 dollars per ton. as we find them on the markets. A 

 number of our poultrymen claim that they derive no benefit at all 

 from feeding these foods, but almost every country grocery store 

 carries a large stock of them, and if the chemist and poultrymen are 

 correct, I am afraid there are thousands of dollars paid out each year 

 in Pennsylvania for 'these preparations, that if thej were invested 

 in oyster shells, grit, corn, oats, bran and wheat middlings, would 

 help the American hen to produce a larger numb^^r of eggs and 

 bring more dollars and cents to those who keep poultry. 



In the enforcement of the law% the imprisonment clause was 

 stricken out, but the amount of fine for the second offence was in- 

 creased. Also in the matter of fines and analysis fees, these are 



