430 ANNUAL KEPORTS OF DHPAKTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



soiithwesteni Kansas to northern Iowa were visited; their methods of 

 killing, picking, chilling, packing, and transportation were observed, 

 and a shipment of ijoultry, of which an accurate record of every de- 

 tail of manipulation had been kept, was sent to Chicago, where it 

 went either into immediate consumption or into a cold-storage ware- 

 house. In either event, the carload was met on its arrival, the condi- 

 tions in the car after the railroad haul were noted, the boxes of 

 poultry opened and examined, and typical specimens sent to the lab- 

 oratory for immediate chemical and bacteriological examination. A 

 number of these shipments have been traced after leaving their re- 

 spective cold-storage warehouses in Chicago, and again examined 

 after the second railroad haul and a short sojourn in a second ware- 

 house before being j^laced on the market; some of them have been 

 followed through the market as far as the retailer. At every step 

 specimens were sent to the laboratory for examination. In this way 

 it has been possible to study the practices of a number of packers 

 over a large territory and to trace the results of methods, weather 

 conditions, railroad facilities, etc., on the final condition of the 

 product when it reaches the consumer. A study of the Chicago poul- 

 try market was also made, and is of especial interest, since tliis city, 

 unlike most others, receives its poultry alive and kills and dresses 

 within the city limits. 



Drawn and undraw^ n poultry. — Especial attention during the year 

 has been given to the question of eviscerating poultry Avhen killed or 

 just before offering it for sale in the markets. Many shipments have 

 been made from the large producing centers of the West to the con- 

 suming sections of the East of drawn and undrawn poultry, dressed 

 by commercial and by experimental methods. The cooperation of 

 the industry has permitted the examination and experimental use of 

 much larger quantities of poultry than would have been possible 

 otherwise, arrangements having been made whereby experimental 

 packages, if not rendered unsalable, were turned back into stock and 

 sold. Hence, this much debated question has been studied on a com- 

 mercial scale, under existing as well as under experimental condi- 

 tions, with every facility that the industry could offer to assist in 

 solving the problem. To the visual examination of the fowls, at every 

 stage of their preparation for the market and their journey through 

 it, was added a chemical and bacteriological laboratory examination, 

 that a standard record of changes in the flesh might be correlated 

 with the history of the shipment, and thereby ultimately provide a 

 scientific explanation for the undesirable fowls so often seen in the 

 markets. Shipments were made during cold and during warm 

 weather. ^Marketing included the handling of the goods by a com- 

 mission man, and by a retailer who sold directly to the consumer. 

 The results of this series of experiments are now being collected. 



Condition of poultry on entering storage. — It is known that the 

 successful cold storage of poultry depends very largelj?- upon its con- 

 dition when it enters the freezer. It has also been observed that the 

 mode of dressing the birds influences the quality, especially after 

 storage. This fact was brought out in several addresses to poultry 

 men and warehousemen, the results of the experiments on scalded or 

 dr3^-picked fowls, promptly stored or delayed before storage, etc., 

 being illustrated by colored sketches of the birds so treated. 



