The view that the economic effect of cold storage is to increase production and to lower the yearly average price of food whose production is variable is evidenced by such statistics as are available. In the manufacture of butter, for instance, the months of greatest production are from May to August, inclusive, and the months of usual deficiency are from November to March. In the New York market the average price of creamery butter from May to August during the period from 1880 to 1892, before cold storage preservation was generally used, was 21.9 cents. During the same months in the period from 1902 to 1911, when cold storage facilities were largely available, the average price was 23.4 cents. But while this comparison shows an average advance of one 1½ cents during the four months of normal accumulation of surplus the effect upon prices during the normal season of shortage was very apparent; for in the months November to March in the period 1880 to 1892 the average wholesale price was 34.3 cents, while during the same months in the period from 1902 to 1911 the average for fine fresh creamery was only 28.9 cents, and the average for fine storage creamery 26.7 cents.
THE QUALITY OF COLD STORED FOODS.
The quality of all perishable food products varies according to the methods of their production and the care taken of them during transit from producer to consumer. The more perishable foods, being produced in a very wide territory by a vast number of producers, and usually transported over long distances, are found in distributing markets to be of extremely irregular quality and condition. Usually qualities are best in the seasons of maximum production, and while goods put into cold storage are also of irregular quality most of those intended for long holding are selected, handled and packed with especial care. The effect upon perishable foods of holding in cold storage is various. It is less in respect to those carried hard frozen, as meat, fish, poultry and butter, and upon durable vegetables and fruit, as potatoes and apples, than upon animal products that cannot be frozen, as eggs in the shell. Yet in all perishable foods commonly carried in cold storage, quality, as judged by popular standards, is preservable up to the limit of usual commercial necessity, in a highly satisfactory degree. The more durable fruits and vegetables, carried in properly corrected and controlled atmospheric conditions, after months of holding, are often indistinguishable in point of quality, from those marketed soon after their harvest. Butter carried frozen for months loses very little of its original flavor and character. Poultry, also, if of fine quality and condition when frozen, may be so held for a long period without noticeable deterioration. Eggs in cold storage gradually lose the peculiar freshness of a new laid quality, but under proper conditions they remain sound, sweet and acceptable when carried at about 30 degrees temperature for at least nine or ten months. Scientific investigation conducted by the research laboratories of the United States Department of Agriculture has given no evidence of any effect of an unwholesome character upon the quality of perishable foods held in cold storage up to the limit of usual commercial practice when the products were sound and wholesome when stored.
The cold storage of surplus and the sale thereof in the markets adds not at all to the irregularity in quality of our food supply. On the contrary, the average quality of the supply is improved, for, without the facility of refrigeration, freshly marketed products would inevitably be poorer; they are now often poorer than similar goods of much greater age properly carried in cold storage. Furthermore, the length of time perishable foods are carried in cold storage is, within reasonable limits, no criterion of their quality. Perfect products, properly refrigerated for months, may be, and often are, superior in all the elements of quality to imperfect goods, freshly marketed or held only a short time. Again, because of the very widely spread sources of our food supply, the necessity for collection at innumerable points and transportation over long distances it is hard to say what goods are “fresh.” Even when collected at interior points, transported to distant markets and put into consumption with usual promptness perishable products are often two to four weeks in the transit from producer to consumer, and often under more or less unfavorable environments.
Under these circumstances it is seriously to be doubted that there is any real ethical foundation for the recent demand that, in the sale of perishable foods, there must be a stated distinction between so-called “fresh” and stored products, or for the feeling that consumers asking for broiling chickens in the winter, for instance, are deceived if furnished with acceptable goods frozen six months before. And this doubt is intensified, no matter how scrupulous we may be in standing for truth and fair dealing, when it is considered how difficult will be the enforcement of laws compelling such distinction in commodities of irregular quality and condition whose age and previous environment cannot be known by examination, and in respect to which a comparison of quality is often in favor of the older goods.
The writer’s conclusion from the foregoing considerations, based upon a long and disinterested observation of the practical use of cold storage preservation, is that artificial refrigeration furnishes the most important of all modern factors in the conservation of perishable foods, leading to an increase in their production, and to a consequent lowering of average prices. Also that governmental attention to the industry would be more usefully directed toward providing for continuous and frequent statistical information of the rate of food accumulation and output, to the end that operators may be guided by the largest possible knowledge, rather than toward any undue restriction of the industry or the imposition of costly and difficult requirements which, though seemingly designed to prevent deception, are, upon analysis, found to be unnecessary and impractical.
National Association of Conservation Commissioners
NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF CONSERVATION COMMISSIONERS.
This Association, consisting of Conservation commissioners and other persons connected with various departments of State development, held two sessions during the Conservation Congress. Several important subjects were considered, but most of the time was given to a discussion of the work done by certain departments connected with public service.
The first session considered State Surveys, their work and co-operation. As a result of this meeting an agreement was reached as to the order or sequence of the surveys, the object being to secure for the States the largest returns from each survey. The sequence of the surveys and the leading points to be emphasized, as decided by the commissioners, are as follows: (1) topography, (2) structure, (3) drainage, (4) ground water, (5) local climate, (6) soil, (7) plant and animal life, (8) social and industrial conditions. This order is thought to be most helpful so far as the surveys are concerned. It is also the natural order. It was plainly shown that several States have wasted time and money in taking up the various surveys in a way that does not develop these relationships. For instance, some States have started industrial and agricultural surveys before they have mapped the geology, topography and water resources. Such an order does not bring the best results. Furthermore, it is wasteful.