INSPECTION AND GEADING OP HAY. 7 



is usually a car-door inspection subject to a bale inspection later if the 

 hay is sold in or near the city. In a few markets the inspection serv- 

 ice is made a source of revenue for the exchange, and but little atten- 

 tion is paid to the grades given the hay by the car-door inspection 

 method. In one market having the car-door inspection system 90 per 

 cent of the hay received is reconsigned without unloading or trans- 

 ferring the hay to another car, yet no provision is made to issue 

 " outbound " certificates of inspection. 



The general rule is for inspection only at the request of the dealer 

 interested in the sale of the hay. It is usually requested when the 

 shipper has graded the hay too high or when the market has slumped 

 and the city dealer thinks that an official inspection might lower the 

 grade claimed by the shipper, which would in turn lessen his losses. 



Experienced hay dealers say that there is no need of an official in- 

 spection if buyer and seller have an opportunity to inspect the hay 

 thoroughly. If the buyer is present he buys " on sight" and uses his 

 own judgment as to grade. If after a sale of this kind has been made 

 and the purchaser upon unloading the car finds it not to be of the 

 grade shown by the plug hay, he usually has no redress. 



HOW HAY IS INSPECTED AND GRADED. 



CAR-DOOR INSPECTION. 



The most common method of inspection is to inspect the hay in the 

 car doors. This kind of inspection, under present conditions, is of 

 comparatively little value to the hay trade in general. The most 

 serious objection to car-door inspection is that the hay in the doors 

 may not represent truly the average grade of the entire car. There 

 is a feeling among receivers that the placing of good hay in the 

 doors and poorer hay away from the doors is not always due to 

 chance. It can be readily seen that if door inspection were final, that 

 there might be a temptation for some to load the best hay in the 

 doors. However, there is a large and growing class of country 

 shippers who have found that, all things considered, fair or uniform 

 loading pays best in the long run. With uniform loading, car-door 

 inspection becomes more valuable. 



At present the only conditions under which a car-door inspection 

 will be accepted by receivers is when the receiver knows from past 

 dealings with a particular shipper that the shipper loads his car 

 uniformly. In case such a shipper is unable to load hay of a uniform 

 grade he notifies the receiver in the invoice as to the amount of each 

 grade. If shippers in general would be honest in loading cars, car- 

 door inspection would be valuable. A large percentage of the hay 

 trade is in favor of the enactment of either State or Federal laws 

 making the nonuniform loading of cars subject to car- door inspec- 



