recisely what he wants, this would go a long way toward simplifying the present rather elaborate scheme of distribution. Economies would be effected, and the cost of distribution could be materially reduced.
So far as is known, no serious attempt to collect, organize, define, interpret and harmonize the various trade names and terms used in the United States to describe market classes and grades of livestock and dressed meats had been made until early in the present century. The task was undertaken by the Agricultural Experiment Station of the University of Illinois, under the leadership of Prof. Herbert W. Mumford, assisted by Prof. Louis D. Hall and others. Thorough investigations were conducted both at the experiment station and on the Chicago market, and these investigations were reported in a series of bulletins.
When the Bureau of Markets, now the Bureau of Agricultural Economics, inaugurated its market reporting service on live-stock and dressed meats in 1917, these publications of the University of Illinois were used as a basis for formulating a standard classification of market classes and grades for use in reporting prices and trade conditions. Using this classification as a basis, the bureau has elaborated a complete classification of livestock and dressed meats and this complete classification will be described in a series of bulletins of which this is the first.
For many years, some business in dressed beef has been done on the basis of specifications, but in most instances such trans-actions have been based largely on class, the grade being indicated in only the most general terms. For that reason this plan has not, as a rule, been successful, and the great bulk of beef is still personally inspected before purchase.
That at least some progress along the line of buying meat on specifications is possible is indicated by the fact that in 1923 the Emergency Fleet Corporation purchased hundreds of thousands of pounds of meat weekly for use on Shipping Board vessels—wholly on specifications. Although all meat was inspected for grade by a Government inspector before it was finally accepted, the fact that for days at a time the inspector made no rejections, and that, on the whole, probably 99 per cent of the meat offered was accepted, demonstrates rather conclusively that it is entirely possible, under a standard system of classifying and grading, for the purchaser to make his specifications so clear and exact that the seller has little or no difficulty in understanding what is wanted.