During the first year, a new inspector may work on only a very few products— 
possibly on only one. Thus, the Federal supervisor would license him to inspect 
only those products for which he demonstrates special fitness. As time goes on, 
he may receive training in the inspection of additional commodities, in which 
case, these commodities would be added to his license card. As an inspector’s 
license is extended to cover additional products, he naturally becomes more 
valuable to the service. However, it may require several years of experience 
before he is proficient in the inspection of as many as a dozen products. Experi- 
ence often qualifies an inspector for better paying positions in private industry. 
Some become packing house managers. Others become marketing specialists 
in the United States Department of Agriculture. Others fill desirable marketing 
jobs in the State governments and in industry. 
Inspection Procedure 
Many large shippers who operate packing houses place blanket orders with the 
inspection service for inspection of all of their shipments. Federal supervisors 
or keymen in charge of the field office nearest the packing plant usually assign 
certain inspectors to be responsible for the work at such packing houses. The 
inspector, therefore, upon reporting to the packing house in the morning, ascer- 
tains from the shipper or his foreman what cars are to be loaded and inspected 
that day. The smaller shippers may place their orders for inspection by telephone 
with the nearest inspection office where the Federal supervisor or keyman in 
charge assigns inspectors to various points in the vicinity in accordance with the 
work requirements of the day. 
Let us assume that a licensed inspector has been assigned to a certain packing 
house to make an inspection of a car of boxed apples being loaded, and note the 
procedure he might follow in making and reporting the inspection. Upon 
arriving at the packing house he would probably select a package of the product 
being graded by the sorters and examine perhaps 50 apples from the packed 
container. He would score defective apples or off-sized apples in the sample and 
nete the information on his score sheet. Then he would probably immediately 
select another packed box and score a similar sample. 
Inspection of a few samples would, no doubt, indicate whether or not the sorters 
were doing their work properly, and the inspector would so report his findings 
to the packing-house foreman. If the samples were found to be close to the 
borderline for the grade being packed, the foreman would probably request 
his sorters to be more careful. Such information given by the inspector is very 
helpful to the packing-house foreman, as it may save much time and labor cost 
in loading out a car of a certain grade of product. 
Assuming that the inspector found the few samples he selected within the 
grade tolerance, he would probably then take time to make other necessary entries 
on his work sheet of information finally to be shown on the inspection certificate. 
He would record the time and date that he started the inspection, the car number 
and initials, the kind of car, the name and address of the applicant for inspection, 
and the name of the shipper. He would then probably look over the car and 
note and report to the foreman any defect in equipment that might affect the 
shipment. Before completing his inspection, he would note on his work sheet 
the condition of the bunkers with respect to the amount of ice, position of hatch 
covers, and whether plugs were in or out and drain pipes were open or closed. 
Next, under the heading “Products,” he would show the name of the product, 
variety if known, the kind of container with its identifying marks and brands, 
such as would appear on the label or on the box, the size of the apples stamped 
on containers, and the lot numbers. Before completing the inspection, he would 
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