452 ANNUAL REPORTS OF DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



Navy, the inspectors occasionally^ visiting cantonments and other 

 military posts in order to give advice to camp quartermasters regard- 

 ing the grading, handling, and inspection of fruits and vegetables. 

 In New York City several men were assigned to inspect supplies of 

 fruits and vegetables for naval vessels and transports. This enabled 

 the Navy Department to effect economies and to obtain supplies of 

 fruits and vegetables of better (|uality with less waste than otherwise 

 would have been possible. 



That the inspection work has been very favorably received by all 

 interests concerned is evidenced by the increasing use which shippers, 

 receivers, and carriers are making of its facilities. Many requests 

 have been received during the year from trade and commercial or- 

 ganizations for the establishment of the service in the cities which 

 they represent, but it has been necessary to decline practically all of 

 these requests because of limited funds. 



The Bureau of Markets has had the fullest cooperation of special- 

 ists of the Bureau of Plant Industry, who are working to combat 

 fruit and vegetable diseases. They have rendered especially valuable 

 assistance in training market inspectors to identify the more impor- 

 tant diseases, and also in preparing valuable hand-colored books illus- 

 trating the effects of diseases on fruits and vegetables. 



The biitter inspection service, which was instituted during the past 

 year on a small scale, was supervised by Mr. K. C. Potts. Regula- 

 tions covering the, inspection of butter were published in Service and 

 Regulatory Announcements No. 51. This service was conducted in 

 New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, and Minneapolis. 



STORAGE REPORTS. 



For the gre^ater part of the fiscal year 1919 this work was done 

 under the direction of Mr. C. W. Thompson, assisted by Mr. John O. 

 Bell. The storage reports issued by the Bureau of Markets show the 

 reserve supply of some of the more perishable foodstuffs, and deal 

 for the most part with holdings in cold storage. These reports cover 

 seven classes of foodstuffs, namely, apples, butter, cheese, eggs, frozen 

 and cured meats, frozen poultry, and frozen and cured fish. These 

 classes are subdivided into 50 different items, including 5 kinds of 

 frozen poultry, 7 varieties of cheese, and 25 varieties of fish. 



For convenience in tabulating the returns the country is divided 

 into eight geographical sections, as follows: New England, Middle 

 Atlantic, South Atlantic, North Central East, North Central West, 

 South Central, Western North, and Western South. Blank forms 

 are furnished to the 1,400 cold-storage firms in the United States 

 on which to submit their reports. The reports submitted to the 

 Bureau come from the warehousemen and show quantities in storage, 

 regardless of ownership. In addition to showing actual quantities 

 of different commodities in storage on a specified date, certain com- 

 parisons are made with reports of other months in order to indicate 

 the relative amount in storage, as compared with previous dates, ana 

 the increase or decrease in holdings during the month. Comparison 

 of the holdings of the current month with the same month in the 



