14 BULLETIX 937, U. S. DEPAETMEXT OF AGRICrLTUEE. 
recently been provided for in Canada, the great bulk of the grain 
business in the past has been conducted on the basis of Government 
inspection and grade. Sales are made by grade and without ex- 
amination of samples. Grain bought in the country may be sold 
either in transit before inspection, after inspection but before being 
unloaded, or after being unloaded and jDlaced in public storage. A 
large share of all the grain marketed in Canada is understood to be 
sold on basis in store at Port Arthur or Fort TTilliam. In actual 
practice one of the farmers' companies operating public terminal 
elevators may consign grain which it has bought at country stations 
to its own terminal elevators at Port Arthur or Fort AYilliam but 
before the car is unloaded the grain is sold to shipper or exporter. 
If in the meantime the car is not diverted or ordered to some other 
elevator, the farmers' company will in natural course receive this 
storage patronage. In addition to patronage secured in this way 
there is more or less opportunity to exchange warehouse receipts with 
other companies operating terminal elevators. 
For example, the Saskatchewan Cooperative Elevator Co. is not 
allowed to own any of the grain which it has in its public elevators, 
but it may own grain stored in the public elevators operated by the 
United Grain Growers or an^^ other company. It is a simple matter 
to transfer title to grain held in one elevator for title to grain held 
in another elevator by the indorsement of warehouse receipts. In this 
manner one public elevator ma^^ give storage patronage to another 
elevator in return for similar storage patronage received. The prac- 
tical results are the same as if a public terminal elevator were allowed 
to have custody of the grain owned by it, with this exception, that 
there is less temptation to substitute or to specially select grain taken 
out of storage for delivery on contracts in which the company is di- 
rectly interested. Under the present system of elevator supervision, 
however, there would be very little opportunity for practices of this 
kind. 
Since public elevators are required to account for every bushel of 
grain received by them and are made responsible for shortages, they 
have likewise been deemed to be entitled to overages. Grain received 
into these elevators has been government-inspected and warehouse 
receipts are issued for the net number of bushels after deducting 
dockage. Xo matter how accurate may be the method of ascertain- 
ing the percentage of dockage in any one lot. discrepancies in clean- 
ing are bound to occur. A very small percentage variation in dock- 
age amounts to considerable in handling several million bushels. 
While every effort is made to keep overages down to a minimum 
without resulting in shortages and while shortages do occur some- 
times, nevertheless the records indicate that overages are not un- 
common and a possible additional revenue is had from this source. 
