Sacramento daily record-union., 1888-08-30
PEACHES, PLUMS, PEARS.
HOW JUICY CALIFORNIA FRUITS
GET TO BOSTON.
A Large Business Developed in Re-
cent Years-It Costs High,
but 1t Pays.
boston Post. August 18th l

upon the Pacific slope found their way 10
Boston tables, and these, in nearly every
case, the tables of the wealthy. In 1856
one carload of California fruit was shipped
to firm in Boston, and sold by them to
those who were able to purchase. In 1887
the firm Of Blake & Ripley, the merchants
above alluded to, were so much encour-
aged by their modest venture that that
summer they were the consiguees of forty
carloads. At the end of this week they
will have received during the present sea-
son seventy carloads. To this number
/ they confidently expect that the remainder
of the season will add thirty more car
! loads. Their outlook for the next and
succeeding summers, in bringing the fruits
of California to Boston, expands in a pro-
gressive ratio which at least indicates the
establishment of vast new traffic with
the extreme West. The Fitchburg Rail
road Company, over whose lines exclu-
sively the fruit has this year come to Bos-
ton, have been very much struck by the
proportions the business has SO suddenly
assumed. General Freight Agent Hart
well said to the writer yesterday that-to
use his own language: at is getting to
be great thing" 1t will be of interest,
then, to describe the transportation from
the Pacific to the Atlantic coast Of the
rich spoils Of California's orchards and
vineyards.
The originators of the enterprise are the
California Fruit Union, which is composed
Of 500 Of the most prominent fruit-growers
and shippers in the State. 1t is not sur
prising, but most pleasant to learn, that
the President of this important business
combination is Massachusetts, boy -
P. Z. Platt. Its General Manager, L. w.
Buck, is native Of our neIghboring
| knickerbocker town, New York. The
| fruits which are sent to us are grown al
most exclusively in the northern part of
California, much of it in Placer county,
and the greater portions of Natoma and
Vacaville sections. The pears, which
form an important part of the consign-
mentS, come largely from the valleys of
! the Sacramento and American rivers. The
kinds Of fruit which are selected for the
| Eastern market are-in the order of their
ripening-apricots, peaches, pears, plums
and grapes. OF each of these we get
large number of varieties. The principal
varieties of the apricots are the ROYAL
! (Which constitute nine-tenths of the ship
ments of this fruits) Thisselps seeding,
Morpark and the peach apricot. The
peaches include the Alexander, early
! Crawford, Hale's early, late Crawford and
| about eight other varieties. Of plums
there are about ten different kinds, includ-
ing the purple Duane, Columbia aud Mag
mum Bonum. No less than twenty-one
varieties of pears are shipped, of which
the chief are Bartletts and the Beurre
Hardy. The varieties of grapes which we
are permitted to taste reach thirteen, the
most prominent being Muscats and Tokays
None Of them are wine grapes; the Cali
fornians keep all those {" to hum :" they
are satisfied that they can make better
wine than New Englanders could and can
wiring greater profit cut of the descend
ants of the Puritans by selling them the
| nectarous liquid than by giving them the
potential grape. The reader now has
knowledge of the senders of the fruit the
localities whence it is obtained and the
kinds of fruit.
The next step brings the golden mer-
chandise together in Sacramento city,
which it reaches from the different sec
tions at very low rate of freight As
rule, the fruit cars are loaded wholly or
in part before arriving at that city-in the
railroad towns convenient TO the fruit
growing regions. The fruit has been
packed by Cinnamon in twenty-pound and
forty-pound boxes-the former for apricots,
peaches and plums, and the latter for
pears and double cases of grapes. 1t is
packed in tiers, with the greatest care and
Inaty onh Il -. Ill.
ness being wrapped in sot paper. The
cars are specially constructed for the ship
ment of fruit, and are all alike They
have the Miller platform TO permit their
being attached to passenger cars, and are
equipped with air brakes. In general ap-
| pearance they do not differ from the ordi-
nary freight car, except that at either end
they have wire screens instead OF solid
wood inclosure. The boxes are skillfully
packed in the cars so as to leave abundant
ventilating spaces.
At Sacramento the trains are made up.
ten fruit cars constituting tram. They
are fast special trains, and six of the cars
eventually arrive at Chicago in less time
than the passenger trains consume. They
do not all, however, arrive there over the
same road. The original train of ten cars
proceeds over the Central and Union Pa
citic railways as far as the Missouri river.
There the cars are divided among the four
trunk lines running from Omaha to Chi
cago. At Omaha one car is consigned to
the agent of the California Fruit Union
in that city. Another is switched off at
! Kansas City, another at st. Louis, another
at st. Paul, and one more is detached
| when Chicago is reached.
The run to Chicago has been accom-
plished in four days and a half. There
the cars, now reduced to five in number,
are attached to a passenger train on the
Erie Railway. At New York two or
three of the cars, as the case may be, are
consigned; the other two or three continue
over the Erie road to Binghamton. where
they are transferred to the Fitchburg's
| lines. The time consumed between Sac
ramento and Boston has been about six
days. The carloads are delivered to Blake
d Ripley, who are the agents in Boston of
the Fruit Union. The whole cost of
transportation is, upon an average, 5000
per carload. Blake & Ripley have, how
ever, paid as much as $S0l on single car
load, and, since the receipt of their first
consignment, on June 18th, have paid
weekly freight charges ranging between
$500 and $500.
From the Fitchburg depot the fruit is
escorted to the auction house of II. Harris
& Co., 227 State street, and is disposed of
altogether at auction. This system of sell
ing is, in the opinion of Mr.. Ripley, the
secret of the success which has this year
attended the enterprise of the California
| Fruit Union. To Boston the credit be-
longs of inaugurating the systerl 1t was
afterward adopted in other cities, and the
Chicago papers, with the cool effrontery
which characterizes them, have sought to
rob the Hub of it's distinction and confer
1t upon the plebian lake city.
1t is chiefly the earliness of the Ca.ifor-
MIA fruit which gives it market here.
The moment Delaware peaches and other
4 Southern fruit begin to reach us the Cali
fornia shipments become fewer, and finally
cease altogether. the reason being, of
course, that the cost of transportation
across the continent renders competition
with Southern fruit impossible at present.
The unusually large grape crop in CalIfor-
| MIA this year will, however, enable the
shippers to prolong their Eastern market
| till November. As the production of
peaches increases in California, saws Mr..
Ripley, rs it must in the near future. and
laci ,,bt