2 DEPARTMENT BULLETIN 1360, U. S. DEPT. OF AGRICULTURE 
erable confusion and misunderstanding often resulted when producers 
and market interests attempted to compare markets. This unsatis- 
factory condition indicated an urgent need for a single set of standards 
for the market classes and grades of each kind of livestock. 
Sensing a demand for uniform standards, the Agricultural Experi- 
ment Station of the University of Illinois attempted to formulate and 
describe a basis for them in the early part of this century. The results 
of these investigations were published by the experiment station in 
Bulletin Xo. 78. Market Classes and Grades of Cattle, by H. W. 
Mumford in 1902, in Bulletin No. 97, Market Classes and Grades of 
Swine, by William Dietrich in 1904. and in Bulletin No. 129, Market 
Classes and Grades of Sheep, by W. C. Coffey in 1908. 
The need for national standards was emphasized when, in 1916, 
the United States Department of Agriculture was authorized to report 
market conditions and transactions at the various livestock markets 
in the United States. Since there were no national standards for 
livestock at that time, the Department, with the cooperation of live- 
stock market interests. State agricultural experiment stations, and 
producer organizations, undertook to define tentative Federal stand- 
ards for the market classes and grades of Cattle. Sheep, and Swine. 
The suggestions contained in the publications of the University of 
Illinois were used as a basis for the Federal standards. 
Since that time these standards have demonstrated their practi- 
cality in many ways. They are used continuously by the Agricultural 
Marketing Administration in conducting a national livestock market 
news service, in demonstrating the grading of livestock before pro- 
ducer and market groups, and in assembling livestock market statistics 
for use in analyzing the national livestock situation. Such standards, 
together with the market terms which were standardized for the 
various market groups, are not only essential to the proper function- 
ing of a national market news service but they also provide a practical 
basis for grouping and designating market animals for sale according 
to their merits or relative market values. Furthermore, each market 
term associated with each of the various market groups, if used in 
the standardized sense, has the same significance wherever so used. 
Because of the many shifts in the methods of marketing livestock 
in recent years and especially the tendency to shift marketings from 
the large central markets to local markets nearer the sources of produc- 
tion, at which markets many producers act as their own salesmen, 
the need for more general knowledge and use of uniform standards 
for the market classes and grades of livestock has become more appar- 
ent. Few livestock producers now depend upon a single market. They 
have a choice of many, and select that market or means of sale which 
promise the greatest net returns when their animals are sold. Under 
such conditions a prerequisite to a thorough understanding of market- 
ing procedure and to profitable marketing is the knowledge and use 
by producers and market agencies of uniform standard classes and 
grades for market livestock in order that they may classify and grade 
their animals, estimate their approximate values, and sell them 
accordingly. 
Standards for the market classes and grades of livestock must be 
suited to the market needs of producers, traders, selling agencies, and 
slaughterers. They must take into account both the kinds of animals 
