FIELD CROPS 387 



reduces its market value. In order to make grain thus damaged 

 appear sound, healthy, and bright, and also to remove the objection- 

 able odors which are usually present, such grain is often artificially 

 bleached with sulphurous acid, thereby making it possible to realize 

 a higher price from its sale. 



The bleaching of grain, and especially the bleaching of oats, 

 with sulphurous acid has been practiced in many of the larger grain 

 markets for a considerable number of years, but with the compara- 

 tively recent developments in apparatus for bleaching grain rapidly 

 and inexpensively the practice has become common also in the 

 smaller grain centers. The process of bleaching is ordinarily referred 

 to in the grain markets as "purifying," and grain so treated is some- 

 times sold as "purified" grain, no mention being made of its having 

 been bleached or of sulphur having been used in the process of 

 '.bleaching. 



Based on investigations carried on at 13 grain markets in 3 of 

 the leading oat-producing States, it is estimated that 18,732,000 

 bushels of oats and barley were bleached in those markets during 

 the six months from October, 1908, to March, 1909, inclusive. The 

 best data available show that during the same period approximately 

 75 per cent of the low-grade oats, ordinarily No. 4 White or below, 

 received at those markets were sulphur bleached. 



Laws have been enacted in several of the States under the au- 

 thority of which the food commissions of those States have held it to 

 be unlawful to offer sulphur-bleached or chemically treated grain for 

 sale within those States except when it is so labeled. 



The views of the Board of Food and Drug Inspection of the 

 United States Department of Agriculture with respect to the use of 

 sulphur dioxid in foods are as follows: 



No objection will be made to foods which contain the ordinary 

 quantities of sulphur dioxid if the fact that such foods have been so 

 prepared is plainly stated upon the label of each package. An 

 abnormal (juantity of sulphur dioxid placed in food for the purpose 

 of marketing an excessive moisture content will be regarded as 

 fraudulent adulteration under the food and drugs act of June 30, 

 1906, and will be proceeded against accordingly. 



In some States the laws and in other States the grade rules 

 under which the grain-inspection departments work prohibit the 

 grading of bleached or chemically treated oats and barley, but owing 

 to the difficulty of distinguishing, except in extreme or exceptional 

 cases, between the bleached and unbleached grain without submitting 

 it to a chemical test, these prohibitions are not always carried out. 

 When such grain is refused a grade it is designated as "purified" by 

 the inspectors and sold by sample instead of by grade. 



Selling bleached oats by sample has always been more or less 

 unsatisfactory and has led to many disputes between buyer and seller. 

 In marketing this class of grain, when it is not designated as "puri- 

 fied" it is customary to make up standard samples to which trade 

 names are often given. These samples are sent to prospective buyera 

 invariably in cloth sacks of open fiber which allow the sulphurous- 



