INSPECTION AND GRADING OF 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- 
