REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 51- 



it is destroyed as unfit for food before marketing. The Food Research 

 Laboratory is studying the preservation of quality in perishable 

 products as well as the prevention of decomposition. 



Better methods have been devised for the handling of dressed 

 poultry from producer to consumer and their adoption by the in- 

 dustry is growing. It is this phase of the work, however, which must 

 be pushed if the scientific findings of the laboratory and field experi- 

 mentation are to yield more food and better food to the people and 

 surer returns to the industries. Years of study have shown that in 

 most instances it is comparatively easy to determine in the laboratory 

 and by experimental observation wherein the shipper errs or the 

 middleman fails; it is an extremely difficult matter to get this infor- 

 mation to the shipper or middleman in such wise that he will under- 

 stand, believe, and apply it. The publication of accounts of the work 

 is helpful, but personal contact between the investigators and the 

 industries is infinitely more effective. Visits to individual packing 

 houses are most prolific of results, but comparatively few people 

 can be reached in this way. Addresses at meetings and conversations 

 with their representatives are the most helpful and economical means 

 now had for reaching a large number of people. Last year about 

 7,500 people, including producers, shippers, railroad men, warehouse 

 men, food inspectors, health officers, educators, and consumers, were 

 interviewed, and 137 packing houses which are handling eggs and 

 poultry visited. 



A field branch has been maintained in Tennessee for more than a 

 year, during which time, in Kentucky and Tennessee, the number of 

 packing houses equipped with mechanical refrigeration, without 

 which it is impossible to handle poultry and eggs well, has increased 

 from 2 to G, and the tonnage from 48 to IGO, and a number of addi- 

 tional plants are being seriously planned, with a consequent increase 

 in tonnage. The poultry and eggs shipped from the up-to-date houses 

 using imjiHoved methods have lost the name of " southern " and are 

 in demand in northern markets, where they command good prices. It 

 is also possible and profitable for these houses to ship to the North 

 the entire year instead of allowing the eggs to rot on the farms and 

 the poultry to accumulate, because the hot season is of long duration 

 and the decay very heavy. 



During the year a traveling refrigerator has been made by the 

 installation of mechanical refrigeration in a refrigerator car. This 

 permits the taking of improved methods into rural districts, where it 

 is otherwise impossible to convince the people what good handling, 

 combined with refrigeration, can do for their produce. 



Information has been given the consumer to aid him in his pur- 

 chase of good and economical food ; as, for example, the facts concern- 

 ing the loss and deterioration of poultry when chilled in water and 



