576 ANNUAL REPORTS OF DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



dental audits of commission men's books in other markets' for the 

 purpose of special investigations. 



The various audits have disclosed irregularities concerning which 

 regulatory action has been taken or is planned for the purpose of 

 bringing about improved conditions. It has been discovered in sev- 

 eral of the markets that commission men were continuing in busi- 

 ness when their assets were insufficient to enable them to settle with 

 the producers whose live stock they had sold. These cases were 

 given the necessary immediate corrective attention, and the ques- 

 tion has been taken up with the various markets of requiring com- 

 mission men to keep the proceeds of sale of live stock belonging to 

 their shippers in separate bank accounts and to give surety com- 

 pany bonds for the protection of their shippers. In some markets 

 bonds are already in force, and in at least one large market the 

 commission men several years ago voluntarily put into effect a sepa- 

 rate banking system for the proceeds of sale of live stock. By coop- 

 eration with the Packers and Stockyards Administration in another 

 market a system of separate bank accounts was being developed at 

 the close of the fiscal year. 



Reports were obtained from packers engaged in interstate com- 

 merce throughout the country showing the financial aspects of their 

 operations during 1921, and at the close of the fiscal year the infor- 

 mation contained in these reports was being consolidated and com- 

 piled in tabulated form, and plans were being made for a systematic 

 study of the accounting systems of the packers as soon as the other 

 pressing work of the accountants of the Packers and Stockyards 

 Administration would permit. 



TRADE PRACTICES HANDLED INFORMALLY. 



Whenever it is possible to anticipate a condition that may be pro- 

 ductive of complaint, or when complaints are actually filed, the 

 Packers and Stockyards Administration endeavors immediately to 

 make the necessary investigation and to bring about whatever cor- 

 rective action may be justified through informal methods and the 

 agreement of the parties affected. It is quite apparent that when 

 this is possible the results are accomplished with much less expendi- 

 ture of labor and expense and with the greater likelihood of perma- 

 nent beneficial results than when matters are allowed to reach the 

 extremely controversial stage of formal proceedings with the attend- 

 ant possibilities of suspension by later court action. Therefore the 

 number of formal proceedings is being kept at a minimum, and such 

 formal proceedings do not represent entirely the results of the work 

 of the Packers and Stockyards Administration. A number of illus- 

 trations of matters of sufficient importance to warrant special men- 

 tion are given in this report in order to indicate the results obtained 

 by this method. 



SHORT-WEIGHT BUTTER CARTONS. 



For some time complaints had been made that an important packer 

 was engaged in the preparation and marketing of butter, in a certain 

 section of the country, in cartons designed to hold 1 pound each 

 which had been labeled for that purpose but which actually con- 



