U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
therefore pass through the various processes incident to marketing 
and so is in danger of further loss from several causes, the most im- 
portant of which are (1) too high or too low temperature, (2) disease, 
and (3) insect pests. Too high temperature ripens apples too fast, 
so that they must be sold at a partial loss or be a total loss. Too low 
temperature results in freezing injury, which may affect only a part, 
or under extreme conditions all, of the fruit in a carload or storage lot; 
in either case the affected fruit must be sold at a loss. Insect pests, 
chiefly codling-moth larvae, may during the marketing process continue 
the destructive work on apple flesh which they began in the orchard. 
And here again some one must take a loss when the fruit is sold. 
The term disease includes (1) rots, (2) blemishes such as scald and 
scab, (3) conditions within the fruit such as water-core and internal 
breakdown. Some diseases originate in the field; others originate, 
or at least become apparent, only during the marketing process. 
But whatever their origin or time of development, if considered as 
a whole they are found to cause a loss which is greater than that 
caused either by insects or directly by faulty temperature condi- 
tions. • There is of course a close relation between temperature and 
the amount of disease that develops; the reference in the above 
comparison is merely to the effect of temperature in bringing about 
either overripeness or freezing injury. 
There is only one set of reports which shows the amount of loss 
due to disease for any considerable portion of the commercial crop. 
These data are found in the certificates issued by inspectors of the 
Food Products Inspection Service of the Bureau of Markets (now 
Bureau of Agricultural Economics) on carloads of apples examined by 
them at terminal markets. It is desirable, therefore, to make use of 
such data, and the present bulletin embodies an analysis and discussion 
of those available for the four-year period ended June 30, 1921. 
The Food Products Inspection Service was established in August, 
1917, and began operations November 1, 1917. From the latter 
date until July 1, 1921, its inspectors examined 11,264 cars of apples, 
distributed as follows: 
November 1, 1917, to June 30, 1918 (1917 crop), 991 cars. 
July 1, 1918, to June 30, 1919 (1918 crop), 1,589 cars. 
July 1, 1919, to June 30, 1920 (1919 crop), 5,342 cars. 
July 1, 1920, to June 30, 1921 (1920 crop), 3,342 cars. 
These inspections covered both the barrel or eastern crop and the 
box or western and northwestern crop and were made in 31 widely 
distributed principal markets of the country. All of them were 
made at the request of a financially interested party, some to decide 
a question of grade, others to determine the amount of decay or 
other disease, and still others for sales purposes; that is, so the car 
could be sold on the basis of Government inspection. They cover 
slightly less than 3 per cent of the total car-lot shipments (382,757) 
during the four-year period and for that reason furnish no adequate 
basis for conclusions about the condition of the whole crop. It 
should not be assumed, however, that they entirely misrepresent 
the condition, since out of 11,264 cars inspected only 5,222, or 
roughly 46 per cent, showed disease. The least that can be said is that 
the inspections give more detailed and accurate information about a 
sunt II part of the commercial crop than has hitherto been available 
about any part of it except a few scattered carloads or storage lots. 
