Board rates could not be decreased if undergraduates were allowed to eat only 18 meals a week in the House dining halls, Dean Watson asserted in a letter to the Student Council.

Addressing his remarks to a series of questions from the Council concerning reductions in the number of meals undergraduates are required to take each week, he said that even if the 18-meal board contract had been placed in effect for 1958-59, "it still would have been necessary to increase the board rate."

Present board rates, he said, are based on an estimate of the number of meals which undergraduates actually eat each week, rather than the 21 meals served. The Administration estimates the average cost per meal for 1958-59 at $1.14, and since it also estimates the number of meals eaten each week to be 15, the board rate is set at $590.

"It seems entirely reasonable," Watson said, "to assume that if the average student now eats about 15 meals a week, he will eat the same number even though the contract calls for 18 instead of 21."

Watson also stated that the operations of the graduate dining halls are separate from the undergraduate halls, "and the faculties involved are responsible for the losses incurred, if any."

At the same time, Carle T. Tucker, Director of the Dining Hall Department, said his department has initiated "a program to improve the quality of the meat" served in the dining halls.

The program includes, he said, "special instructions about the cooking," as well as "a new purchasing procedure effective this year." A special market inspector, he explained, examines meat supplies before they are purchased. In addition, Tucker said, "the dining halls have just been instructed to increase as much as possible servings of different sauces."