INSPECTION OF MEAT AND PRODUCTS.

The inspection and supervision of meats and products prepared and processed is shown in the following table, which is a record only of supervisory work performed and not a statement of the aggregate quantity of products prepared. The same product is sometimes duplicated by being reported in different stages of preparation under more than one heading.

Meat and meat food products prepared and processed under inspection.

The quantities of meat and meat food products condemned on reinspection on account of having become sour, tainted, putrid, unclean, rancid, or otherwise unwholesome, were as follows: Beef, 9,396,215 pounds; pork, 7,918,185 pounds; mutton, 83,061 pounds; veal, 141,688 pounds; goat meat, 4,035 pounds; total, 17,543,184 pounds.

MARKET INSPECTION.

Market inspection was begun during the fiscal year at one city, making a total of 43 cities at whose public markets this inspection is maintained in order that interstate deliveries of meats and products may be made therefrom.

MEAT AND PRODUCTS CERTIFIED FOR EXPORT.

The following products were certified for export under certificates and stamps: Beef and beef products, 723,559,990 pounds; mutton and mutton products, 2,413,916 pounds; pork and pork products, 1,784,472,896 pounds; a total of 2,510,446,802 pounds. In addition there were issued 214 certificates covering the export of 3,639,895 pounds of inedible animal products.

EXEMPTION FROM INSPECTION.

The provisions of the meat-inspection law requiring inspection usually do not apply to animals slaughtered by a farmer on a farm nor to retail butchers and dealers supplying their customers. Retail butchers and dealers, however, in order to ship meat and meat food products in interstate or foreign commerce, are required first to obtain certificates of exemption. The number of exemption certificates outstanding at the close of the fiscal year was 2,498, a decrease of 58 from the preceding year. During the year 100 certificates were canceled, 88 on account of the dealers retiring from business or ceasing to make shipments, 7 for violations of the regulations, 4 because

the business was of a wholesale nature, and 1 dealer was granted inspection.

During the year 45,530 shipments, amounting to 4,299,620 pounds, were made by retail dealers and butchers holding certificates of exemption, as compared with 67,779 shipments, amounting to 6,698,597 pounds, during the fiscal year 1917. The shipments of the year covered products as shown in the following table:

Shipments by retail dealers and butchers under certificates of exemption from inspection.

During the fiscal year 73,746 interstate shipments, amounting to 11,535,525 pounds, were made of meats and meat food products from animals slaughtered by farmers on the farm, as compared with 87,486 shipments, amounting to 14,146,842 pounds, during the fiscal year 1917. The following table shows the products covered by these shipments:

Shipments of farm-slaughtered products under exemption from inspection.

The following table shows the inspection of imported meats and meat food products for the fiscal year, and represents an increase of 102.56 per cent over the inspections for the preceding year:

Imported meat and meat food products inspected.

The following statement shows the condemnations of imported meats and the amounts refused entry on account of lack of foreign certificates or other failure to comply with the regulations:

INSPECTIONS FOR OTHER BRANCHES OF THE GOVERNMENT.

By request of the War and Navy Departments and of the Immi gration Service of the Department of Labor, reinspections of meats and meat food products to determine whether they were wholesome and conformed to the specifications were made during the fiscal year. Inspections were made at 71 camps for the War Department and at 45 places for the Navy Department. The following table shows the amounts of these and other inspections.

Inspection for other branches of the Government.

In the meat-inspection laboratories maintained in Washington and six other cities of the country, samples of each meat food product prepared at official establishments are examined to determine whether they are properly labeled and contain no deleterious substance. Samples are analyzed of the various materials used in the curing and preparation of meat and products, such as water and spices, salt, etc., and of the various substances used in and around establishments, such as inks, disinfectants, and insect and rodent exterminators, and permission for use is based upon the results of such examinations. During the last year all the laboratories did a great deal of work in examining samples of meat food products prepared for the Army and the Navy to determine whether they contained any harmful substances and met the Army and Navy specifications.

The total number of samples examined by the laboratories during the year was 64,502, of which 57,282 were domestic, 779 imported products, and 6,441 were for the War and Navy Departments. These figures show an increase of 4,686 over the number for the preceding

year. One thousand three hundred and sixteen samples were found not to be in accordance with the regulations, 64 of which were from imported products and 16 from military products. Water supplies from 735 sources were examined, 119 of which were condemned for use in the preparation of meat products.

The study of the rancidity of fats has been continued, and has now progressed so far that it is possible to assert definitely that the condition known as rancidity is entirely due to oxidation.

QUARANTINE DIVISION.

The work of inspection and quarantine of imported live stock, the inspection of animals for export, and the inspection and disinfection of imported hay, hides, wool, etc., have been conducted by the Quarantine Division under the direction of R. W. Hickman, chief.

INSPECTION AND QUARANTINE OF IMPORTED ANIMALS AND PRODUCTS.

New regulations have been issued for the inspection and quarantine of horses, cattle, sheep, swine, and other animals imported into the United States (B. A. I. Order 259), and to govern the importation of hides, fleshings, hide cuttings, parings, glue stock, sheepskins, and goatskins and parts thereof, hair, wool, and other animal by-products, and hay, straw, forage, or similar material (Joint Order No. 2 of the Treasury Department and the Department of Agriculture). Some new ports of entry have been designated for the convenience of shippers, and the bureau is authorized in special cases and with the concurrence of the customs authorities to designate other stations than those specifically named in the regulations.

Shipments from Great Britain to the United States have been coming forward with a fair degree of regularity, though, as in the preceding year, importations of live stock have been below the normal average.

Early in the fiscal year the animal quarantine station for the port of Baltimore, Md., situated on the water front near that city, was turned over to the War Department for Army use; consequently permits have not been issued for the importation of ruminants and swine at Baltimore. The stations at Boston and New York, however, have been maintained, thus affording accommodations for importers entering live stock at Atlantic coast ports.

Under authority of the food production act, joint regulations were issued October 1 by the Secretary of the Treasury and the Secretary of Agriculture providing for the importation of tick-infested cattle from the Republics of Mexico and South and Central America and from the islands of the Caribbean Sea for immediate slaughter at ports of entry below the southern cattle-quarantine line. It was provided by Congress that cattle imported under the provisions of the act should be slaughtered in accordance with the meat-inspection law, and also that all such animals were to be shown to be free from exposure to the infection of any disease other than tick fever during the 60 days next before their exportation.

During the year 40 cattle were shipped into Porto Rico from the Virgin Islands. While the Virgin Islands belong to the United States the quarantine laws of the United States do not apply to them, as they are under the control and jurisdiction of the Navy Department.

Accordingly, these cattle, upon arrival at Porto Rico, were treated as imported cattle.

The following tables show the importations of the various kinds of live stock through the different ports of entry:

Imported animals inspected and quarantined.

Inspectors of the bureau also inspected and held in quarantine for the Bureau of Biological Survey 6,177 live quail imported from Mexico for breeding purposes.

The bureau has continued to maintain an inspector in Great Britain, and during the year there were tested with tuberculin under his supervision in the United Kingdom 920 cattle for importation into the United States. There were also tested after arrival at the quarantine stations in this country 133 cattle, of which number 4 reacted to the test. This work is shown in the following table:

Results of tuberculin tests of cattle for importation into the United States.

Through the courtesy of the Governments of Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, and Paraguay, a veterinary inspector of the bureau spent the greater part of the last two years in those countries investigating

97335°-AGR 1918- -8