• 208 ANNUAL REPORTS OF THE DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



the year is that active cooperation has been established with city 

 officials. Many specific instances of cooperation are noted else\\'here 

 in this report. A "" Clearing House Letter " has been issued f re- 

 (juently to food and drug officials. Its purpose is to furnish offi- 

 cials all available current material bearing upon the enforcement 

 of food and drug laws. A revision of the Manual of Procedure for 

 the Guidance of State Health, Food, and Drug Officials w^as published 

 in October, 1916. A compilation of the definitions and standards for 

 foods and drugs that have been enacted into law by the several States 

 was prepared and distributed to many officials. Concrete evidence 

 of the spirit of cooperation now prevailing is found in the greater 

 use by State officials of the Food and Drugs Act as an additional 

 protection to their people. During the year there were instituted 

 by 14 States, 117 such cases — 25 seizures and 92 criminal prosecutions. 

 These do not include cases instituted by the District of Columbia. 

 Nearly all of these cases involved feeds. Only nine involved foods. 

 There were no drug cases. The preponderance of feed cases will not 

 be so great next year since during the present year there w^ere col- 

 lected by 24 States 330 official samples — 232 feeding stuffs, 91 foods, 

 and 7 drugs. 



Imported foods and drugs. — Statistics concerning the import work 

 are given in Table I. The quantity of imports has been greatly re- 

 duced. Eegula'r brands and lines of products no longer form the 

 bulk of the importations, and even standard articles, such as bella- 

 donna, have almost entirely disappeared. On the other hand, new 

 products obtained from countries that have not heretofore shipped to 

 the United States and new varieties of the old from new sources have 

 been oifered. Thus imitations of such Italian cheeses as Eomano, 

 Eeggiano, and Parmesan have been imported from South America. 

 The long trip through the tropics in ships not equipped with refrig- 

 eration not infrequently spoils them. The high price of beans has 

 caused the extensive importation of many varieties of beans from 

 many countries. Among, them were so-called Burma or Rangoon 

 beans from Asia and tapiramos beans from South America, which 

 are known to yield hydrocyanic acid under some conditions. Ship- 

 ments yielding appreciable amounts of hydrocyanic acid were there- 

 fore excluded as being dangerous to health. These poisonous beans 

 are varieties of lima beans {Phaseolus lunatus) of various colors 

 and in shape may not be unlike the common navy bean. On careful 

 inspection they may be distinguished from the common bean by the 

 fact that, unlike the common bean, they show distinct striations radi- 

 ating from the eye to the periphery. There are also other less easily 

 noticeable differences. The quality of the tomato paste imported 

 has improved. Except for a few shipments of English mustard, 

 European, including Russian, mustard seeds have entirely disap- 

 peared from the importations, and have been replaced by Chinese, 

 Japanese, and Indian seeds. Indian rape or Tori {Brassica Tiapus 

 Var. dichotoma) was substituted for Indian brown mustard. Chi- 

 nese mustard {Brassica juncea) seems often to be improperly col- 

 lected, since it frequently contains much immature seed and weed 

 seeds with Eruca. The use of genuine material from new botanical 

 sources has been encouraged when properly collected and imported 



