INSPECTION AND GRADING OF HAY. 3 



The desires of (1) the country shipper are opposed to those of (2) the 

 terminal receiver and shipper, whose desires are opposed somewhat to 

 those of the (3) distributor in a consuming territory. 



It is a well-known fact that the country shipper wants rather 

 " loose " grades, that is, grades which will permit wide latitude with 

 respect to the quality demanded. He naturally wants grades which 

 allow considerable variation within each grade, for then it becomes 

 rather easy for him to deliver any specified kind, especially of the 

 better grades of hay. 



The terminal-market dealer wants very rigid or " tight " grades, 

 each of which will permit but one quality of hay to fit the grade. 

 Such grades would be of incalculable advantage to him, especially 

 when prices have dropped and he wants to reject hay arriving upon 

 a poor market. Another advantage to the terminal dealer would 

 occur if he were allowed to reconsign hay without having to furnish 

 an " out " inspection certificate, because he could place his own grade 

 on such outbound hay. In other words, the principle of this terminal- 

 market practice is to buy as cheaply as possible from the country 

 shipper by use of " rigid " grades or inspection and sell at as high 

 a price as possible to the distributor by means of grading the hay up. 



The large distributor in the consuming territory wants one thing 

 more than any other, namely, to bring about some system whereby 

 he will be able to get actually the kind of hay he has bought. This 

 is true because, in many instances, he sells hay to those who are 

 desirous of buying only the better grades. At present the best way 

 for the southern hay dealer to get good No. 1 hay is to deal through 

 large terminal market dealers who keep traveling representatives on 

 the road for the purpose of visiting the southern dealers once or 

 twice a year in order to " keep together " on the matter of grades. 

 The smaller southern dealer who buys from terminal dealers who 

 do not send " outbound " certificates with the invoice is likely to 

 grade hay high. He will often accept No. 2 and No. 3 hay as being 

 No. 1 because he can resell it to customers who do not know good 

 hay as judged by present grade requirements. The result of the 

 difference of opinion regarding grade requirements is that one type 

 of dealer pays for real No. 1 hay and gets it while the other type of 

 dealer pays the market price for No. 1 hay and often does not get it. 

 It is quite probable that the distributor's desires regarding grade 

 requirements would coincide with those of the country shipper if the 

 use of official outbound inspection certificates accompanied all hay 

 reconsigned from terminal markets. 



The formation and occasional revising of market grades for hay 

 are largely under the control of the terminal-market members of 

 organizations composed of the various agencies engaged in the mar- 

 keting of hay. Attempts of country shippers to revise grades so 



