TWELFTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART IV 179 



Mr. Downiug: Yes, sir. I make a record of the time when 

 they are loaded, of the leaving time, how many hours they were 

 between loading and unloading places, and I also get from Chi- 

 cago the arrival time right down to the minute. Of course we 

 don't know when they are sold. I have discovered that the fill 

 at the market is very important : likewise the time that they 

 arrive. If they arrive very early in the morning, it has been 

 my obser\-ation that they don't fill; if they arrive very late, the 

 alleys are clogged, and there is such commotion that they are 

 not able to get them to feed before they are sold. If they arrive 

 between 4 :30 and 8 :00 a. m., their chances for fill are much better 

 than if they arrive later. 



^h\ Dorau : I thiiik 'Mr. Downing has arrived at the right 

 place to secure the information he is after. At the secretary's 

 office you will find a quantity of records showing the running- 

 time, the day loaded, the day weighed in Chicago, and all the 

 statistical information on a great number of shipments. The 

 secretary has sent out hundreds of blanks for shippers to report 

 on. and we had this information before the committee on rail- 

 roads and commerce when we sought to have a law passed known 

 as the speed limit bill. 



Secretary Wallace: I am sorry to report that we don't get- 

 nearly as many of those shipping reports as we ought to have. 

 Two or three years ago. when Ave were in the midst of the fight 

 over here, we made a special effort and got a very large number 

 — I think I had at that time four or five hundred — from every 

 part of the s-tate. They were of tremendous value to us in our 

 hearings before the Iowa legislature and in our conferences -with 

 the railroad people when we were endeavoring to remedy the 

 matter of sen-ice. Xow. although I think every member has had 

 put in his hands one or more of these reports, I am getting very 

 few. Some way, we don't seem able to get our members to rni- 

 derstand the value of these reports to us. We ought to have 

 one of them for every shipment made by the members of this 

 association. You never can tell when you will Avant the infor- 

 mation that these reports would give. I sincerely hope that our 

 members will help in that. There is no Avay in which they can 

 serve themselves so much as by enabling us to accumulate this 

 information and have it laid away ready to draw on when we 

 need it. 



