the act of Congress approved March 3, 1891, entitled "An act to provide for the inspection of live cattle, hogs, and the carcasses and products thereof which are the subjects of interstate commerce, and for other purposes."

EXPORT CATTLE INSPECTION.

(1) The order and regulations providing for the inspection of export cattle and sheep, made October 20, 1890, under the provisions of section 10 of the act of Congress approved August 30, 1890, are hereby continued in full force and effect, the same as if made under the provisions of the act of March 3, 1891, and all exporters, to secure clearance for their shipments of cattle, must comply strictly with the said regulations.

MEAT INSPECTION.

(2) The proprietors of slaughterhouses, canning, salting, packing, or rendering establishments, engaged in the slaughter of cattle, sheep, or swine, the carcasses or products of which are to become subjects of interstate or foreign commerce, will make application to the Secretary of Agriculture for inspection of said animals and their products.

(3) The said application must be in writing, addressed to the Secretary of Agriculture, Washington, D. C., and shall state the location and address of the slaughterhouse or other establishment, the kind of animals slaughtered, the estimated number of animals slaughtered per week, and the character and quantity of the products to go into interstate or foreign commerce from said establishment; and the said applicant in his application shall agree to conform strictly with all regulations or orders that may be made by the Secretary of Agriculture for carrying on the work of inspection at such establishment.

(4) The Secretary of Agriculture, upon receipt of said application and after consideration thereof, will give said establishment an official number, by which all its inspected products will thereafter be known, and this number will be used both by the inspectors of the Department of Agriculture and by the owners of said establishment to mark the products of the establishment, as hereinafter prescribed.

(5) The Secretary of Agriculture will appoint and designate a veterinary inspector to take charge of the examination and inspection of animals and their products for each establishment which has been officially numbered, as prescribed by Rule 3, and will detail to such inspector such assistants or other employés as may be necessary to properly carry on the work of inspection at such establishment. The inspector appointed, and all employés under his direction, shall have full and free access at all times to all parts of the building or buildings used in the slaughter of live animals and the conversion of their carcasses into food products.

(6) The veterinary inspector in charge of said establishment will carefully inspect all animals in the pens of said establishment about to be slaughtered, and no animal shall be allowed to pass to the slaughtering room until it has been so inspected. Whenever any animal is found on said inspection to be diseased, said animal shall thereupon be condemned by the inspector, and the owner of the same shall at once remove it from the premises and dispose of it in such manner as may be provided by the laws of the State in which said animal is located.

(7) The veterinary inspector or his assistant shall carefully inspect at time of slaughter all animals slaughtered at said establishment and make a post-mortem report of the same to the Department. Should the carcass of any animal, on said post-mortem examination, be found to be diseased and unfit for human food, the said carcass shall at once be removed from said establishment under the supervision of the inspector and be disposed of in the manner provided by the laws of the State where slaughtered. Any owner of any establishment in which inspections are being made under the provisions of the act of March 3, 1891, who shall willfully cause or permit any animal which, upon inspection, has been found to be diseased to remain on said premises beyond the time allowed by the inspector in charge for its removal, shall forfeit his right to inspection, and said establishment will, for such time as the Secretary may direct, be refused certificates of inspection upon its products.

(8) The carcasses of cattle which leave said establishment as dressed beef will be stamped by said inspector with a numbered stamp issued by the Department of Agriculture, and a record of the same will be sent to the Department at Washington.

(9) Each and every article of food products made from the carcasses of animals inspected will be labeled or marked in such manner as the owner of said establishment may direct; said label, however, must bear the official number of the establishment from which said product came and also contain a statement that the same has been inspected under the provisions of the act of March 3, 1891.

A copy of said label must be filed at the Department of Agriculture, Washington, D. C., and, after filing, said label will become the mark of identification showing

that the products to which it has been attached have been inspected, as provided by these rules and regulations, and any person who shall forge, counterfeit, alter, or deface said label will be prosecuted under the penalty clause of section 4 of the act of March 3, 1891.

Each and every package to be shipped from said establishment to any foreign country must have printed or stenciled on the side or on the top, by the packer or exporter, the following:

FOR EXPORT.

(a) Official number of establishment.

(b) Location of factory.

(c) Number of pieces or pounds.

(d) Trade-mark.

In case said package is for transportation to some other State or Territory or to the District of Columbia, in place of the words "For Export" the words "Interstate Trade" shall be substituted.

The letters and figures in the above print shall be of the following dimensions: The letters in the words "For Export" or the words "Interstate Trade" shall not be less than three-fourths of an inch in length, and the other letters and figures not less than one-half inch in length. The letters and figures affixed to said package shall be legible and shall be in such proportion and of such color as the inspector of the Department of Agriculture may designate.

(10) The inspector of the Department of Agriculture in charge of said establishment, being satisfied that the articles in said packages came from animals inspected by him, and that they are wholesome, sound, and fit for human food, shall affix to the top of said packages meat-inspection stamps to be furnished by the Department of Agriculture, said stamps bearing serial numbers, and the inspector will write on said stamps the date of inspection.

The stamp must be securely affixed by paste and tacks in such a way as to be easily read when the package is standing on its bottom. Not less than five tacks shall be driven through each stamp, one at each corner and one in the middle of the stamp.

The stamp having been affixed, it must be immediately canceled. For this purpose the inspector will use a stencil plate of brass or copper, in which will be cut five parallel waved lines long enough to extend beyond each side of the stamp on the wood of the package. At the top of said stencil will be cut the name of the inspector and at the bottom of said stencil will be cut the district in which inspection is made. The imprinting from this plate must be with blacking or other durable material, over and across the stamp, and in such manner as not to deface the reading matter on the stamp, that is, so as not to daub and make it illegible. The stamp having been affixed and canceled, it must immediately be covered with a coating of transparent varnish or other substance. Orders for stamps must be made by the inspector on the chief of the Bureau of Animal Industry.

(11) Whenever any package of meat products bearing the stamp of inspection shall have been opened and its contents removed for sale the stamp on said package must be effaced and obliterated from the package.

(12) Reports of the work of inspection carried on in every establishment will be forwarded to the Department by the inspector in charge, on such blank forms and in such manner as will be specified in "Instructions to inspectors of slaughtering establishments."

SWINE.

(13) The inspection of swine for export or interstate trade will be conducted in the same manner as prescribed in the foregoing rules, with the addition, however, that a microscopic examination for trichina will be required for all swine products. (14) When the slaughtered hog is passed into the cooling-room of said establishment, the veterinary inspector in charge, or his assistants, will take from each hog two samples of muscles, one from the "pillar of the diaphragm" and the other from another part of the body, and said samples will be put into a self-locking tin box and a numbered tag will be placed upon the hog from which said samples have been taken and a duplicate number of said tag will be placed in the box with said samples. The boxes containing the samples from the hogs in the cooling-room, so tagged, will be taken to the microscopist for such establishment, who shall thereupon make a microscopic examination of each box containing samples, and shall furnish a written report to the inspector in charge of the cooling-room, giving the result of said microscopic examination, together with the numbers of the hogs from which samples have been examined.

(15) All hogs reported by the microscopist to the inspector in charge of the cooling. room to be affected with trichina will at once be removed from said cooling-room

of said establishment under the supervision of said inspector or one of his deputies, and be disposed of by the owner in such manner as may be required by the laws of the State where such factory is situated.

(16) The inspector in charge of the slaughtering or other establishment will issue a certificate of inspection for all carcasses of animals or the food products thereof which are to be exported into foreign countries, which certificate will cite the number of the factory, the name of the owner or owners operating the same, the date of inspection, and the name of the consignee and country to which said articles are to be exported. Said certificate will also contain the numbers of the stamps attached to the articles to be exported. One certificate only will be issued for each consigument. The certificates will be issued in serial numbers and in tripicate form. Öne copy thereof will be delivered to the consignor of such shipment, one copy will be attached to the invoice or shipping bill to accompany the same and be delivered by the transportation companies to the chief officer of the vessel upon which said consignment is to be transported, and the third copy will be forwarded to the Department of Agriculture for filing therein.

J. M. RUSK,

Secretary.

Meat inspection was instituted under these regulations on May 12, 1891, at the abattoir of Eastman & Co., New York, N. Y., and was confined to the inspection of their export dressed beef. At the beginning of June, 1891, this work was inaugurated in Chicago, and soon thereafter at South Omaha, Nebr.; Kansas City, Mo.; Milwaukee, Wis.; Jersey City, N. J.; and Hammond, Ind. Microscopic examination of hogs was commenced at the abattoirs of Nelson Morris & Co., Armour & Co., and Swift & Co., Chicago, Ill., on June 22, 1891.

Since the commencement of this work to October 31, 1891, 1,587,976 animals have been inspected both before and at the time of slaughter. Of this number 1,226,675 were cattle, 25,116 calves, 163,835 sheep, and 172,350 hogs. There were 467,918 quarters of dressed beef tagged for export and 2,818,798 for interstate trade. In addition, 312,683 packages of canned, salted, and smoked meats were stamped in accordance with the regulations.

The following table shows in detail the work of meat inspection from its commencement to October 31, 1891:

Statement showing meat-inspection work from its commencement May 18, 1891, to October

31, 1891.

The workings of this inspection and the carrying out of our regulations were watched with careful scrutiny by the representatives in this

235, 754

25

861

1,686

5, 266

21, 180

29, 018

28

768

8,758

16, 525

21, 832

47,911

2,216

9, 655

14, 650

36, 851

108, 978

172, 350

248

country of foreign governments, and the first result of this microscopic examination of hogs was the order made by the German Government on September 3, 1891, removing the prohibition that it had maintained since 1881 against the importation of American pork products. The removal of this prohibition by Germany was followed within a short time by the removal of a similar prohibition by Denmark, and later by Italy, France, and Austria.

The importance of opening the foreign markets once more to an unrestricted importation of American pork products can hardly be overestimated, as affecting the farmers of this country. Prior to the full enforcement by foreign countries of their policy of prohibition, qur export trade amounted, in 1881, to $69,000,000 in pork products, excepting lard, which product has never been restricted. In 1891 we exported $50,494,375 in pork products, excepting lard, showing a difference and loss of $18,505,625 between the exports of 1881 and 1891. The exports during the whole period of prohibition averaged about $43,000,000 per annum, and the removal of these foreign restrictions should, therefore, give a market that will increase our export trade in these products at least $26,000,000 a year.

COST OF THE WORK.

It is exceedingly difficult to estimate the cost of the new branches of work undertaken by the Bureau of Animal Industry during the past year. This difficulty is increased by the fact that the amount of work done each month and the cost of the same fluctuate with the demands of commerce for our cattle and their products.

The work of inspection of export animals, provided for by the act of Congress of August 30, 1890, has now been in operation for about twelve months. The average cost of this character of work during this period has been at the rate of $8,500 per month. During certain months it has gone as high as $10,279, and again has fallen as low as $7,400. As an average it might be estimated that the cost of export cattle inspection, which covers the work at interior stock yards, tag. ging, recording, and inspecting at the foreign animal wharves in Great Britain, would be $100,000 per annum.

The cost of maintaining the supervision of the movement of Southern cattle was at an average expenditure of $2,275 per month, or for the ten months during which these regulations are enforced, $22,750.

The inspection of imported animals arriving in the United States from Canada amounts to $775 per month, or $9,300 per annum.

The work of meat inspection has only been fairly in operation since the commencement of the present fiscal year. The cost of the inspection of animals in this work during the month of July, which includes the examination at time of slaughter, the tagging of quarters of dressed beef going into the export or interstate trade, and the stamping of packages of canned and salted beef and pork products, amounted to 5 cents per head for each animal inspected, or a total for 195,664 animals in the month of July of $11,160.71. This cost per head was reduced in the month of August to 43 cents per head, being a total number of 295,250 animals inspected at a cost of $13,981.39. A still further reduction in the cost of this work was accomplished during the month of September, when 438,593 animals were inspected at a cost of $14,200, an average of 31 cents per head. During the month of October the total cost of inspection was $16,392.28. The number of animals inspected was 572,489, making the average cost of inspection 2.86 cents per animal. It seems probable that the inspection of animals and their

marking for identification may be accomplished for a sum not exceeding 3 cents per head.

These figures, however, do not include the cost of microscopic inspection of hogs. This latter branch of the work has not been in operation long enough to be properly estimated for. At the commencement of the work it was necessary to educate examiners in the performance of their duties, and some little time was required for their becoming proficient and rapid in their examinations. Another difficulty that has been met with is the fact that several abattoirs which are being supplied with this character of inspection do not keep our examiners supplied with the quota of samples designated in their application for this inspection. The cost of microscopic inspection during the month of July amounted to 20 cents per hog; during August it was 13 cents per hog; during September, 83 cents; and during October, 5 cents. The number of samples which each examiner should examine in this work is about fifty per day; and, taking this number as the average, the cost of the inspection would be about 5 cents per animal. It is thought, therefore, that the inspection work undertaken by this Department under the direction of Congress can be made at 3 cents per head for cattle and 5 cents per head for hogs.

The demand for this inspection by the various packing and slaughtering establishments throughout the country is on the increase. Twentytwo establishments are now having their products inspected, and there are a number of other applicants whose requests have not been complied with, owing to the fact that the appropriation for the Bureau is not sufficiently large to be drawn upon further for this branch of work. It is most earnestly recommended that Congress be asked to make an appropriation for this work sufficiently large to enable this inspection to be extended to all applicants. It might be suggested that this branch of work was not considered by Congress, at its last session, in making appropriations for the Bureau of Animal Industry, as the bill providing for the work was not passed until the closing days of Congress. The benefits which have already accrued by the opening up of the foreign markets to our pork products, the increased demand for beef products, and the reëstablishment of their reputation for wholesomeness and soundness in the markets of the world, together with the protection which inspection gives to our own consumers, justify Congress in providing such an appropriation.

It may be stated in this connection that during the past three or four years considerable agitation has taken place in a number of States relative to the character of animals slaughtered for the interstate trade in dressed beef at the large central abattoirs of the country, and that State legislation was enacted as a police regulation of certain States in order to guarantee to consumers the wholesomeness of the food which was sold for their consumption. This legislation by several States was declared by the Supreme Court of the United States to be invalid, since it was a measure affecting interstate commerce, and belonged exclusively to the General Government of the United States. It is plain, therefore, that the only protection from unwholesome or diseased meat which the citizens of the greater part of the United States can obtain in the present condition of the meat trade must come from the national inspection service. The extension of the inspection and the thorough enforcement of the regulations are consequently matters which interest not only that portion of our people engaged in agricultural pursuits, but to an almost equal degree every citizen of this country.

AG 91-8