BUREAU OF AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS. 169 



the car is loaded. It proceeds at once to its destination without in- 

 direction or delay when neither auctioneer nor purchaser has ever 

 seen even a sample of the goods. Furthermore, the buyers need not 

 attend these auctions in person, but houses in cities hundreds of 

 miles away can do business at these auctions through resident buying 

 brokers by stating the size, variety, and grade of the product desired 

 and the chra-acter of the containers in which packed. 



On the first 500 cars of California cantaloupes thus sold there was 

 a net saving in commission to the shippers of 10 per cent of the 

 f . o. b. price of the goods. 



The first year's experience in shipping-point inspection, which of 

 necessity has been largely experimental, although developing a vol- 

 ume of business more than twice as great as that done in all of the 

 markets combined, indicates that when this service is fully devel- 

 oped it is likely to call for the services of not less than a thousand 

 inspectors per annum, although many of them may be part-time men. 

 Every State in which the work is being conducted successfully on a 

 large scale is using the fees to support the work, and it is believed 

 that in no other way can the Federal service be given the elasticity 

 and be put upon a correspondingly self-sustaining basis. If this is 

 not to be done it will be necessary eventually that appropriations 

 be made of not less than $1,000,000 per annum, upon which the 

 department can draw to finance this work as may be required. 



It is noteworthy that while the inspection work at terminal mar- 

 kets had reached a point in the fiscal year 1922 where five-sevenths 

 of the appropriation was returned to the Treasury in the form of 

 the fees the combined market and shipping-point inspection work, 

 for the fiscal year 1923 has returned to the Treasury six-sevenths 

 of this appropriation, notwithstanding the fact that the introduction 

 of a new service of this sort has inevitably resulted in a small net 

 cost to the Government in far more than half of the States. The 

 substantial excess of fees over expenditures in certain territory indi- 

 cates clearly the possibility of extending this work on a self-support - 

 ing basis to a very large proportion of the shippers of the entire 

 country whenever the department is given a freedom approximating 

 that of other business institutions in financing the enterprises for 

 which they are responsible. 



RECEIVING-POINT INSPECTION SERVICE. 



During the fiscal year ending June 30. 1923. inspections were 

 made by Federal inspectors with offices located in 32 important 

 markets. Inspections were made, however, at a total of 296 unload- 

 ing points, covering a total of 28,169 inspections at terminal markets. 

 Compared with the fiscal year 1922 this shows an increase of 2.291 

 inspections of fruit and a decrease of 5,329 vegetable inspections. 



The decrease of 3,038 cars in the total number of inspections 

 made in 1923 is due chiefly to the loss of inspections for the railroads 

 in some cities. This loss has been due, first, to the inability of the 

 small inspection force of the bureau to handle the work requested 

 by the railroads within the necessary time; second, the objection of 

 the railroad to the payment of the regular fee for such a large num- 

 ber of inspections, as they believe that this fee is excessive for their 



