44'0 Report of the Inspection Work of the 



offered to the public without disguising it, could not be successfully 

 floated on the market, A characteristic and not uncommon example 

 of such feeds is a mixture of some corn product with oat hulls or of 

 wheat bran with corn cobs, or similar material. Feed mixtures of 

 this general type, that is, those containing several by-product ingre- 

 dients, whether inferior or not, have increased from 41 licensed 

 brands in 1900 to 78 licensed brands in 1903. 



USE OF INFERIOR MATERIALS IN LICENSED BRANDS. 



The use of inferior materials in licensed brands is, in a certain 

 sense, legalized by the certificate issued by the Station, but these cer- 

 tificates are not a guarantee of good quality. They simply show that 

 the law has been complied with as to the license fee and the registra- 

 tion of the guaranteed analysis ; and are in no sense an endorsement,, 

 official or otherwise, of the feeds whose sale is thus legalized. More- 

 over, the Station cannot prevent the sale of inferior feeds, no matter 

 how unfortunate this may be, when they are sold or offered for sale 

 in accordance with the specified legal regulations. The chief purpose 

 of the law is to secure for the purchaser information concerning what 

 he buys, but no legislation whatever will defend the consumer against 

 the results of his own ignorance or indifference, when he buys in- 

 ferior articles about which he may gain information. To illustrate,, 

 several brands are licensed in New York that consist of wheat bran 

 into which is introduced corn cobs or similar materials. To the un- 

 initiated the mixture appears to be pure bran but the guarantee for 

 protein shows that it is not. The intelligent, careful buyer is there- 

 fore not deceived, but the uninformed may be. The same is true of 

 mixtures containing oat hulls. They are so compounded that the con- 

 sumer who does not examine the goods and take into account the 

 guarantees and all other facts, buys what he does not expect or care 

 to buy. 



The presence of inferior ingredients in a feed is generally indicated 

 by the proportion of crude fiber present and in some cases by the low~ 



