The record-union., 1893-12-04
THE NEW PLAN FOR FRUIT DIS
TRIBUTION.


There is printed in our telegraphic col
umns this morning dispatch from Los
Angeles to which the attention of all pro-
ducers of fruits and vegetables is called,
and that is of profoundest interest to
them.
1t is announced that the Atchison, To-
peka and Santa Fe Railroad Company has
put in service upon its route weekly re-
frigerator car line between this State and
Chicago and Missouri River points, and
touching at all intermediate points, by
means of which producers will be en-
abled to have their products put into the
cars, and unloaded at any of the inter
mediate or terminal points.
The scheme is one of mixed carloads
and breaking of shipments en- route, and
is the outgrowth of earlier suggestion, as
the dispatch shows, which possesses pc
culiar significance. and is of high value
to the producers of California.
The experiment now inaugurated will
be watched with keen interest, and while
in the outset it may not prove entirely
successful, we entertain the belief that it
will be established and made perma-
nency, for in this case, as in nearly all
others, opportunity will create the mar
ket. 1t always requires time to open a
new market, and give momentum to pur
chasing desire through new methods.
Thus the idea Of purchasing vegetables
in winter-time in sections where they
are not then produced, purchasing oppor-
tunity being contemporaneous with the
arrival of supply by mixed carloads, is
wholly new to all such points of consump-
ton. But, as is obvious, so soon IS the
consumers realize that such purchases are
feasible, and that the arrivals may be re-
lied upon at the various stations along
the route of delivery, there will develop
q regular and equally reliable demand to
the consumers.
The Atchison. Topeka and Santa Fe
road is therefore to be commended for in
augurating the new system and giving it
the test of a practical trial. For if it is
successful, as we feel confident it will be,
it means larger margin of profit for pro-
ducers. arising out of the more rapid and
economic method of distribution over a
larger area than it is possible with car
load lots to terminals alone.
The commonest intelligence will realize
that it means eventually, and this at a
very early date, the devotion of every
suitable acre of land in California to
orchard and garden, and hence profitable
and constant employment to thousands of
hands in the highest and best, because
most natural and wholesome, industry
for man.
As California, because of its peculiar
advantages arising out of climatic condi-
tions, is capable Of producing some fruits
and vegetables in every week of the year
which are not seasonable at that time in
some or all of the sections of distribution.
and in large part are not produced profit
ably in those sections at any time, this
State can, under such system, have a
constant market supplied at lowest cost,
and with greatest rapidity of delivery.
In short, such a system means, if any
thing at all, the realization of all the
dreams which the lovers of California
have INDUCED in, and the fulfillment of
all prophesies which students of the in
dustrial resources of the State have made.
Our belief is the experiment now entered
upon will succeed, if it is given full and
fair trial and is promoted with due faith
by producers willing to wait reason
able time for the development of demand
that must be created so soon as consum-
ers ascertain the reliability of the distri-
button, and awaken to the full meaning to
them of the opportunity. Not only will
the present demand in itself afford justi-
cation for the experiment, but this new
method of distribution will. by cultiva-
ton of tastes. very quickly augment the
demand, until it swells to proportions
limited only by the capacity of the people
to consume.
The dealers in fruit and vegetable prod