The Birmingham age-herald., 1910-10-29

| r rom the New York Commercial English purchasers of American hog products are complaining that the United States government stamps and brands on such products mean nothing The case in particular that has called for protest from British dealer to '.the Honorable
 Secretary of Agriculture" at Washington was that of a quantity of lard bought in this country and shipped to England. each package in the lot bearing the or
 ficial 70 K'' of the government inspee- tor, the pure food certification and SC.
 forth. when the lard reached the retail CTS and consumers "on the other side 1t proved to be rancid. and the buyer lost sl4oo on the shipment in conse- quence.
 In the absence of details-and especially
 as to the time that elapsed between the
 purchase here and the retail sales Tn England-intelligent judgment in the case
 is out of the question, of course. But At least one thing may be said--that the United States government does not guar antee that inspected food products Will remain fresh and edible forever, or for any specified period. It might happen, for instance, that cattle duly inspected and ''certified' at the port of departure may develop some disease on the voyage across the Atlantic or even after their
 arrival in Europe--but the government certification could not in consequence be properly characterized as meaningless The government inspection of food prod ucts is unquestionably susceptible of some improvement. The incident, how ever, has served to suggest point to
 The Age-Herald of Birmingham, Ala. It says: After a while, no doubt, English buy CTS will discover that the cotton plant is superior to hogs in the production of an article needed in every household and wherever else cooking or baking Is done. It is clean, free of disease germs, whole-i some and does not become rancid in any ordinary temperature It grows under hot
 suns, and it is proof against high tenn peratures While Englishmen prefer lard to cotton seed oil products, they will no doubt have to take all the losses that
 attend the handling of lard-and they are numerous"
 Whenever producers and consumers, the world over. get to calling things by their right names, most of the prejudice against food products now very common | ly marketed under names not strictly their own or that suggest something different will gradually disappear Once demonstrate to an Englishman that fat | for cooking purposes prepared from cot ion seed oil Is clean and good and whole some and without objection in any way, and he will buy it and use 1t just as
 readily as he now buys and uses fat pre- pared from the carcasses of hogs and known commercially as '1ard'-and es-
 pecially so, if the price is lower than that
 Of the hog product But the demonstra-
 tion is 'up to- the cotton seed oil peo- | pie. Europeans-and Americans, too, for that matter-consume thousands of gal
 Ions of cotton seed oil every year under
 the mistaken notion that it is ''purep olive oil; the former may be just as pal
 certainly cheaper-but these consumers
 will not buy 1t as such so long as the
 prejudice against the cotton oil product
 remains.
 l Market these things under their own
 names and demonstrate their palatabil- | ity, purity and wholesomness, and the
 hog and the olive will speedily be put
 on the defensive and be made to demon-
 strate the same thing in the ensuing