36 



BULLETIN 971), IT. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



tection, the buyers frequently experience considerable loss and some 

 Avill buy only such cars as the seller guarantees to be uniformly 

 loaded with hay of the quality shown by the plug (fig. 6). 



The practicability of the plug method depends to a great extent 

 upon the facilities available for plugging the cars. The plug yards 

 must be located so as to be convenient to the trade and so that the 



railroads may place 

 cars in them with 

 the minimum 

 amount of expense. 

 At Chicago, for ex- 

 ample, it has been 

 found impracticable 

 to establish plug 

 yards for the reason 

 that no place is 

 available that can be 

 reached economic- 

 ally by all the prin- 

 cipal roads bringing 

 hay into that mar- 

 ket. At Memphis, 

 cars are plugged 

 and inspected and 

 the hay is loaded 

 back into the cars 

 immediately be- 

 cause the yards do 

 not afford a desir- 

 able place' for sell- 

 ing. The cost of 

 selling by the plug 

 method is greater 

 than the others com- 

 monly used an d 

 varies from 75 cents 

 to $3 per car accord- 

 ing to the services 

 performed. 



Fig. 0. — Showing 



quantity of hay usually taken from the 

 car as a plug. 



Sales at Wakehouses. 



At JNew York, Boston, Baltimore, and other eastern markets, as 

 well as at several southern markets, the railroads maintain ware- 

 houses into which all hay is unloaded upon arrival and from which 

 practically all sales are made. The hay from each car is stored sepa- 

 rately so that its iclentiy is not lost. The dealers visit these ware- 

 houses each day, and the hay is disposed of at private sales between 



