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 
lor 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 likety 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 
a re 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 
