The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1891-07-24
A oLUr OF wA1EaMELoNs.
The Markets Flooded With Bad Fruit
and Losses Heavy.

4no 0ddEh6lG EAOONAO0 " AVA D0~ . - 49,
and Losses Heavy.
There is glut in the melon markets,
caused principally by the shipment Of infe~
rior fruit and its unequal distribution.
The chief trouble is with the western mar
kets. The Central railroad has notified
its agents to refuse shipments TO
overst cked points unless the freight
is prepaid to the destination. These mar
kets are principally in Ohio and Western
Pennsylvania The Pennsylvania railroad
in all cases requires the prepayment Of
freight on melons carried over its lines,
and in consequence prepayment is required
by its connections.
The Savannah Florida and Western rail-
way is shipping very heavily, principally
to the north and east. 1t has moved SO far
this year 4, l43 carloads against 2, S93 car
loads last year. The Centrals shipments
are heavy, and they are being handled
as rapidly as possible The Ocean Steam
ship line is unable to handle all the fruit
delivered to it, The City Of Birmingham
carried 6l,0O0 day before yesterday, and the
City Of Macon, for Boston, yesterday had
1900 melons. The company has dumped
good deal of fruit in New
York already. owing to its overripe
condition and failure to get on the market
IN time A good deal remains on the
docks here on account of the steamers not
being able to carry it. The Savannah,
Florida and Western IN its greatest season
has never handled over 5000 carloads.
The situation in the fields shows the
trouble to be overproduction and poor fruit.
The Americas Recorder says there is no
organized effort to properly distribute
the crop by selecting such mar
kets as are likely to be
best paying. The present seasons crop has
not brought by any means satisfactory re-
turns Last year the Georgia and Carolina
Melon Exchange was organized. 1t made
| contracts for decidedly the bulk of the
! crops of Georgia, Florida and South Caro-
lima. The plan was to pay the growers
S75, $50 and $50 per car for melons on the
track when loaded. Nothing under
ffteen-pound melon was to be put
in car and no car was to have
| less than 200 melons. Those who were in
terested in the exchange were a few promi-
nent growers and commission merchants,
To make sure Of its money the exchange
| made contracts with one commission house
| at each shipping point to handle all melons,
| the exchange to draw upon shipment Of
car for S75, $50 or $50, as may have been
paid for it. The idea was to properly dis
| tribute the crop and hold up prices that
| would pay.
The growers had a good thing. Those
| WIZ DOAA w bho luduo iuOI6 ulOueJ
than they had ever made before. But it
went not well with the exchange. The
| growers flew vide Of their contracts Mel
ons were terribly short in weight and num-
| bers. 1t looked like plan for all who had
| contracts to see how much
they could make out of the
| exchange. The result was that the
commission men saw that they were con-
| stanty getting in the soup by advancing
moro per car than they could possibly
realize. One fine morning the exchange
went to the walla having suffered an actual
loss of $4,000, while the aggregate loss Of
the exchange and the cooperating commits
sion men footed up a much larger sum-
The growers had hurried off green
melons, melons that had just dropped the
bloom, deformed melons and all other sorts
OF melons, to get advantage of the SIS price.
The vines Were bare and the growers had
made big money. OF course the loss fell on
the commission men. The idea therefore
suggests itself that the commission men are
having their inning this year.