TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART VI 475 



mean that no prosecutions are made until efforts have been made to warn 

 merchants as a class that new statutes had been passed or that certain 

 violations of old ones are being made. If a merchant who believes that 

 he has been unjustly prosecuted will make an investigation, it is believed 

 that he will find that frequent warnings had been sent to the merchants 

 from this office by means of trade and daily press, to say nothing of the 

 large number of bulletins sent out by the department and the personal 

 warnings given by the inspectors. While there are, of course, a number 

 of instances where merchants have been prosecuted for unwitting viola- 

 tions of the law, a large number of prosecutions have resulted from con- 

 scious, flagrant violations. 



Considering the large number of Iowa merchants and the huge volume 

 of business transacted in food stuffs and other commodities, the control 

 of which is a function of this department, prosecutions have been rela- 

 tively few in number. This speaks well for the business ability and in- 

 tegrity of the merchants of the state. It appears safe to say that the 

 proportion of prosecutions to the amount of business done will be even 

 smaller in the future. 



One disappointment which the Department experienced this year, was 

 the attitude of a number of merchants toward the law requiring the 

 candling of eggs. As is well known, the egg law empowers the commis- 

 sioner to set aside a certain period of time when candling certificates shall 

 not be required. This open season is provided for to relieve the merchant 

 of the necessity of candling at a time when practically no poor eggs are 

 sold and when the flush of the season is at its height. It is, then, a ruling 

 designed to assist the merchant and it would appear only fair that he 

 should show his appreciation of such a ruling by re-commencing candling 

 promptly upon the date which is named as the one upon which the 

 open season shall terminate. It is with regret that it is found necessary 

 to state that a number of merchants did not co-operate with the depart- 

 ment in this respect, but continued to buy and sell eggs without candling 

 certificates, using as their excuse, when discovered, that they did not 

 know that the open season had ended. It seems a little hard to under- 

 stand just why these men should know when the open season started if 

 they did not when it had closed. When the announcement of the open 

 season is made, the opening and closing dates are definitely stated, and 

 it hardly appears logical to believe that there are many merchants who 

 would remember the former and forget the latter. Most of the prosecu- 

 tions brought for violation of the egg law came as a result of failure to 

 obey the candling requirements, although a number of cases were filed for 

 wilful selling of unedible eggs, also. 



The Dairy Law and its adjunct, the Dairy Container Law, was one of 

 the five most frequently violated. Iowa test ice cream, low test milk, 

 selling of substitutes improperly labeled and failure to return containers, 

 are the chief sources of violations of this law. Prosecutions under this 

 law, apparently, are usually either wilful or unwitting in nature, com- 

 paratively few careless violations being reported. Where large commer- 

 cial ice cream companies, having modern testing equipment available, con- 

 tinue to manufacture ice cream from three to five percent below the legal 



