Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1885-10-16


EDS. RECORD MON: Having read . Fruit
Questions in your paper of the 14th, 1 wish
to answer some of the points. First, the
shipping of fruit has no relation to ship
ping needles or shirts. Why? Because
fruit has to be packed in properly con
structed car for ventilation, which, by rea-
son of its perishable character has to be
attached to an express train and hauled to
its destination as quickly as possible.
Shirts and needles can he put into car in
their cases, with hams and shUyels or any
other merchandise, and sent on their way
and stop at every station on the road in the
first 1000 miles, to discharge part of the
load from the same car and while the
common freight car has gone LOCO miles in
a given number of hours, the fruit car has
trebled the distance. Hence the carriers
can take the shirts. shoYels, ETC., in indis-
criminate parcels; but not SO fruit. The
fruit may be i'll many varieties of packages
and in many varieties OF fruit, but all fruit.
Next, at Newcastle the fruit-growers have
combined, and nearly every day sent a
carload of fruit. They had no trouble
in seeing the fruit-growers and getting
them to bring in such fruit as
was suitable to ship. They are
Il CUiilpdbg- HlIlcGIl men nave COUlDiiGtt
and ship their fruit together Newcastle
fruit has been a formidable rival of thar of
Sacramento this year. There has been no
trouble about the commission merchant
running in carloads of fruit to cut the
Newcastle shippers, but each has sold their
fruit. Now, suppose the Newcastle COM
pany had not been formed the fruit
would have been shipped by the Sacra-
mento merchants, or ii would have wasted.
The Sacramento merchants have had all
they could handle well.
Next, | presume there is man that
could attend to the shipping of all the
fruit that can be brought into one combi-
nation of this company, and if he should
resign, fail of election or die, some one
would rise up to fill his place To be sure,
there would have to be a score of agents at
the other end to meet the fruit and dispose
of it. is not that now the case? And who
are these agents? They are simply fruit
dealers in the Eastern cities. The person
who will handle the fruit satisfactorily to a
private firm will Tor a corporation, and will
for either much more satisfactorily than
for forty or fifty small growers, because the
power of the fifty small growers,
when incorporated, is centralized; when
each acts separately, each is weak.
Now it makes no difference how much
by the carload, or how much he will bend
toward the idea of single box in a car.
We know, as business men, that in one or
the other he can make the greatest proper
tional reduction. Which one? That is
the question and bearing upon its accept
ance by the grower is which can the grower
comply with most easily? One is chaos,
the other system; and certu My any one
knows that there is no comparison between
starting out OF Sacramento with a paSsen-
ger car with one passenger and a fruit ear
with one box of fruit, for the door of one
can be opened at every station from here
to the end of the road and admit more
passengers, while after the other has passed
Newcastle the fruit belt is behind. We all
know that greater reductions can be made
on carloads than can be on packages. And
if they can be, they will be, for we know
Governor Stanford is not going to pursue a
course that Will kill his business. If he
should. we would then have no railroad
and would have ID d. al cur fruit
and snip by water. We want the
greatest reduction in freight that will
be conceded. aud on q plan on which
the greatest reduction can be conceded
We are striving for two things to attain
one end that end. profit to fruit-growers /;
the reduction of freight and the means of
sending all our fruit to the front with as
little intermediate TOLL other than freight,
as possible. In the perfection of these
arrangements we increase our market. If
we can get freight at $500 per car we can
send fruit at such prices that the
million may use it, if we can prevent the
price being controlled at a figure that only
a few can afford. What we want is a
market. This year with 5000 a car reduc-
ton, the producer has realized but 60 per
Loot
East has paid the same price as last year,
at least the quotations from day to dav sent
here from Eastern cities show the same
prices at wholesale as those of last year
Another point concerning the large and
small grower. We cannot expect each to
be upon an equal footing, they never We're
in any business, any more than small
stream is on an equal footing with a large
one. The larger streams will carry heavier
tonnage craft. and the cities upon its banks
will outgrow those on the smaller streams.
But | viii suggest plan; am not one to
pull down and suggest nothing. An offer
has been made that we can have cars at
$500 each if we will load fifteen cars per
day. But some one says we cannot ship
that much. Well, can we ship ten? If so.
let US have them at 800, making 81 900 for
train of ten, instead of 81 500 for fifteen.
believe Governor Stanford will concede
that, or some other reduction based on the
amount of business we can give. Let that
plan be pursued, and every shipper will
combine to act together to get the largest
number of cars loaded per day. that they
may all get the lowest freight. As grower,
do not believe in the small package plan.
First, who will inspect it, to see If it is in
order2 If it is not. it will infect the rest
of the car. This point will apply to any
promiscuous shipping. As to population,
any rush to q locality is unstable That
has been proven too often in California. A
growth based upon individual and general
prosperity is permanent and useful, none
other is. The howl against monopoly that
has gone up from the central portion of
this State has done much TO retard its set
tlement. People who are searching for
homes, read the papers of the locality in
which they are searching, and have not
the time to Investigate misrepresentation.
| believe there is abundant reason to