MARKETING HAY AT COUNTRY POINTS. 23 
ing hay. If, however, he has a number of shipping points, then it 
becomes a question whether it would pay to build warehouses at these 
various points or to try to run all of the hay through the home ware- 
house or to do without warehouses. 
The location of the warehouse with reference to the other shipping 
points and the direction of shipment to the terminal markets has an 
important bearing upon the value of a sorting warehouse. A sorting 
warehouse is one used to sort or separate hay shipped from storage 
warehouses or brought in from surrounding territory. If the hay 
purchased at the various shipping points necessitates a " back haul " 
it will seldom pay to run the hay through a warehouse. If hay pur- 
chased at various shipping points can be routed so as to pass through 
the home shipping point en route to market, a sorting warehouse can 
be used quite advantageously, provided the shipper has been able to 
secure billing in transit privileges. 
If hay can be billed so that it may be put through a warehouse in 
transit it will give the shipper an opportunity to load cars uniformly. 
Many shippers think that if every shipper could run his hay through 
a warehouse it would result in doing away with all the trouble caused 
at present on account of " plugged " cars and uneven loading. Some 
shippers are not in favor of warehousing hay. They claim that a 
shipper's competitor who loads in the ordinary manner often gets 
the same price as does the shipper whose hay has been put through 
the warehouse at an added expense. Such hay does not necessarily 
bring any more money per ton. This is particularly the case during 
times of advancing markets. 
In general, but little is gained in using a warehouse unless the hay 
is sorted and graded as it comes in, because filling the warehouse in a 
haphazard manner makes it practically impossible to load uniform 
cars when the time comes to place the hay in the cars. 
Some interesting information regarding the value of warehouses 
has been obtained in Aroostook County, Me. The shippers in this 
county do not have any trouble about uniform loading. Practically 
all the hay grown for the market in this county is put into barns, 
where it is safe from weather injury. As soon as it is baled it is 
hauled to the shippers' warehouses and is sorted and graded as it 
goes in. When the shipper desires to load a car of any grade of 
hay no difficulty is experienced in loading the car uniformly. Many 
shippers who do not sort hay as it comes in say that they can not 
load cars uniformly because they have to trust ignorant laborers 
who do not know the grades of hay. In the Aroostook County ware- 
houses inexperienced men can be used as efficiently as experienced 
warehousemen, because it is necessary only to tell them where to get 
the hay for each car, as the hay has been previously graded. 
