TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART VI 487 



The war tax placed upon the sale of ice cream is undoubtedly partly 

 responsible for the failure of the public to consume a larger amount of 

 ice cream. This is brought about through the tendency on the part of 

 certain retailers to advance the price to the next even nickle when a war 

 tax of one or two cents is placed upon each dish served. That is, a dish 

 of ice cream retailing for twenty cents incurs a war tax of two cents. 

 Many retailers simply advance the total price to twenty-five cents and 

 absorb the war tax. Needless to say this extra three cents is not shared 

 with the manufacturer and from his standpoint is harmful since there is 

 no gainsaying the fact that this levying of an additional five cents does 

 keep many people from making a purchase. 



While it is still a little early to be making predictions, I feel assured 

 that with the continued decrease of sugar and other raw materials, 

 next spring will see a decline in the price of ice cream, particularly in 

 those cities where the price has arisen to $1.40 or $1.50 a gallon whole- 

 sale. A price movement downward will be viewed with approval rather 

 than regret by practically every ice cream manufacturer in the state, I 

 feel certain, providing, of course, that it comes as a result of lower raw 

 material and manufacturing costs. 



WEIGHTS AND MEASURES. 



I have found it necessary to assign the entire time of three men to the 

 duties of heavy scale inspection and to use such time of our Food and 

 Dairy inspectors as they could spare to the inspection of counter and 

 cream scales in retail establishments and cream stations. With the pre- 

 vailing high prices for all commodities, the necessity of accurate scales 

 and weights is apparent. Demands from grain and stock buyers, farmers, 

 canning factories, sugar refineries and merchants for emergency and 

 periodical inspection of their scales have been exceedingly heavy. Mine 

 owners and miners have also made frequent demands for this work. 

 Dealers, consumers and workmen have ^1 learned to have confidence in 

 the accuracy of the scales approved by this department, and insist on fre- 

 quent inspection to insure fair dealing. The department is also called 

 upon to make a large number of special trips for inspections for which 

 private companies are willing to defray the expense. 



As competition has grown keener and prices have risen higher, the 

 number of requests for scale inspection has doubled and trebled. The 

 department, with the number of inspectors at its disposal, has been un- 

 able to answer requests as promptly as should be done. There is also a 

 great deal of correspondence resulting from daily reports of inspectors, 

 shortage reports from various sources, warning reports, requests for scale 

 inspection, prosecutions, complaints and reports of similar nature, which 

 demand a large amount of attention from the Chief Inspector of Weights 

 and Measures. 



During the year ending November 1, 1920, the department inspected 

 3247 "heavy" scales, that is, scales used by grain elevators, coal mines, 

 retail coal dealers, railroad stock scales, sugar refineries, canning fac- 

 tories, etc. The revenue received by the State for the inspection of these 



