22 ANNUAL REPORTS OF DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



On June 1, 1918, the Department took over the furnishing of all 

 telegraphic market reports distributed daily from the Chicago Union 

 Stock Yards on live-stock receipts and prices, including not only 

 those regularly sent over the leased wire of the Bureau of Markets 

 but all reports used by commercial news agencies and press associa- 

 tions. The substitution of a Government report for the previous 

 unofficial service has exerted a material influence in restoring confi- 

 dence in the reports of market conditions, the lack of which has been 

 a fundamental obstacle to the economic development of the live-stock 

 industry. 



DAIRY AND POULTRY PRODUCTS. 



The news service on dairy and poultry products gives prices of 

 butter, eggs, and cheese, trade conditions, market receipts, storage 

 movement, and supplies in storage and in the hands of wholesalers 

 and jobbers. Since the fall of 1917 it has covered Washington, Bos- 

 ton, New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Minneapolis, and San Fran- 

 cisco. Data were secured each month from approximately 14,000 

 dairy manufacturing plants in the United States, showing the quan- 

 tities produced of such products as whey, process butter, oleomar- 

 garine, cheese of different kinds, condensed and evaporated milk, 

 various classes of powdered milk, casein, and milk sugar. 



GRAIN, HAT, AND FEED. 



Biweekly statements on the stocks of grain, hay, and feed, the sup- 

 ply of and demand for these commodities, and the prices at which 

 they were being bought and sold in carload lots, were issued from 

 New York, Richmond, Atlanta, Chicago, Minneapolis, Kansas City, 

 Oklahoma, Denver, Spokane, and San Francisco. 



Through the machinery of these services, emergency work of 

 special value was conducted. At the request of the Director Gen- 

 eral of Eailroads, a survey was made to determine the exact loca- 

 tion of the soft corn in the United States and the number of freight 

 cars needed to move it; and, at the request of the Food Administra- 

 tion, the feed requirements of New York, Pennsylvania, and New 

 England were ascertained. Temporary offices were opened in the 

 drouth-stricken regions at Fort Worth, Tex., Bismarck, N. Dak., 

 and Bozeman, Mont., to assist farmers and cattle raisers in securing 

 supplies of feed, and aid was thus given in saving thousands of cattle 

 from starvation or premature slaughter. 



