50 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



regarded by the farmers of the State as divesting them very largely 

 of the values which they strove to gain in securing the creation of 

 this Bureau in the Department of Agriculture. 



DESIKABILITY OF EXTENSION OF PRESENT FOOD LAWS 



It will be shown in later parts of this report that, since the first 

 enactment of the General Food Law of 1895, a very radical improve- 

 ment in the condition as to freedom from adulteration of tlie foods 

 sold in Pennsylvania markets has taken place. The addition of 

 undesirable preservatives and of deceptive and possibly injurious 

 colorings has largely disappeared. The label descriptions of foods 

 are less frequently deceptive. The sale of imitations and substitutes 

 is, with rare exceptions, made under properly distinguishing names 

 and label statements. The chief point of criticism remaining, relates 

 to the conditions of production, transport, liandling, exposing for 

 sale, and delivering to consumers of the various food products, and 

 to the occasional use of raw and partially finished food materials 

 that are diseased, more or less decomposed, or otherwise undesirable 

 for similar reasons. 



Undoubtedly the most important development in the food control 

 work of many of the states of the Union in recent years has been the 

 extension of the Service for the purpose of securing the public from 

 the results of the use of unsanitary materials and from the prepara- 

 tion and handling of foods under unsanitary conditions. 



It is true that paragraph six of section three of the General Food 

 Law was designed to secure the public against unsanitary condition!!* 

 in food manufacture and handling. 



It might therefore appear to the casual reader of the General Food 

 Law that its provisions are adequate to secure for the citizens of 

 Pennsylvania the same measure of benefits that the sanitary food 

 laws and regulations of other states, such as. for example, Indiana, 

 Louisiana and North Dakota, are affording the citizens of those com- 

 monwealths. A careful investigation of the General Food Law in 

 these respects must, however, very promptly lead to a different con- 

 clusion. As a matter of fact, under the Pennsylvania Food Act of 

 1909, the history of the raw materials and the conditions of prepara- 

 tion and handling must be determined solely by the examination 

 of the finished article after its sale to the consumer or to the Bureau's 

 agent representing the consumer. The discovery of the facts that 

 should be known is necessarily very incomplete where the means of 

 discovery are so limited, and this phase of the food service in Penn- 

 sylvania is, therefore, much more inadequate than that which is given 

 by many states to their citizens through their food control agencies. 

 The man who is careless in making the foods that others are to eat, 



