36 
BULLETIN 979, IT. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
tection, the buyers frequently experience considerable loss and some 
will buy only such cars as the seller guarantees to be uniformly 
loaded with hay of the quality shown by the plug (fig. 6). 
The practicability of the plug method depends to a great extent 
upon the facilities available for plugging the cars. The plug yards 
must be located so as to be convenient to the trade and so that the 
railroads may place 
cars in them with 
the minimum 
amount of expense. 
At Chicago, for ex- 
ample, it has been 
found impracticable 
to establish plug 
yards for the reason 
that no place is 
available that can be 
reached economic- 
ally by all the prin- 
cipal roads bringing 
hay into that mar- 
ket. At Memphis, 
cars are plugged 
and inspected and 
the hay is loaded 
back into the cars 
immediately be- 
cause the yards do 
not afford a desir- 
able place for sell- 
ing. The cost of 
selling by the plug 
method is greater 
than the others com- 
monly used and 
varies from 75 cents 
to $3 per car accord- 
ing to the services 
performed. 
Fig. 6.- 
-Showing quantity of hay usually taken from the 
car as a plug. 
Sales at Warehouses. 
At -New York, Boston, Baltimore, and other eastern markets, as 
well as at several southern markets, the railroads maintain ware- 
houses into which all hay is unloaded upon arrival and from which 
practically all sales are made. The hay from each car is stored sepa- 
rately so that its identijf is not lost. The dealers visit these ware- 
houses each day, and the hay is disposed of at private sales between 
