The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-05-14
LOSS ON STRAWBERRIES. Inc philadelnhia Rnnnrd anva.

It Is a source Of unhappineSS that the mand for bringing to the North all the strawberries the Southern growers are anxious to sell. That 0 million dollars worth of these luscious berries sEould rot for lack of transportation Is ir the nature of calamity.
 That Is one of the misfortaaes in connection with the strawberry crop of the South. It is ono of the ops which only lasts few weeks and whi :h mr5t be marketed very soon after picking. The demand in the North Is enormous. and if all the berries H,uld Dc shipped through as fast as gathered both sec tions would be immensely benefited. And there is an unanswerable argument in favor of Alabama canneries. In ghis State these berries can be grown in al- most unlimited quantities and of the finest flavor, but the means for making them profitable are limited. If all that cannot readily be sold or shipped Douid be canned while fresh, 1t would add many thousands of dollars to the in- come of our market gardeners.
 When Tho Philadelphia Record in the item expressed surprise and regret that "a million dollars worth of these ius- cious berries should rot for lack of transportation" the expression may have sounded like exaggeration, but 1t is not SO. A late issue of The Carolina Field. published at Georgetown, s. C., in the heart of the strawberry region of the Eastern coast. gives detailed and gloomy accounts of tho losses sustained through the failure of the railroads to provide cars for shipping the fruit From Conway, S, C., tho report Is sent out that there has been a demand for from 250 to 300 cars a day, "and prac- tically none available for a week." The of cars has and will cause a loss of hundreds of thousands of dollars cn this one crop. From various portions of the State comes the same complaint and the same story of loss. From Charlotte the correspondent of The Charleston News and Courier writes that moro than s20o,000 worth of ber ries have routed here since last Monday His letter was written on so the figures represent the loss for only six days. He adds: "The railroad companies at this moment are hauling carload after carload of fine, but spoiled berries and dumping them as so much garbage" He makes the further assertion that "the loss to the truck growers of this immediate section will be at least $500, ,000."
 These various reports show the con- ditions existing in ono of the great erry-growing regions of the South. That there is blame somewhere is not to be doubted. and the sufferers do not hesitate to place the blame on the rail- road and express companies. Whether these could have avoided the trouble may be an open question, but there is one thing we gather from these corre- spondents that is significant. and that is that the fruit and truck growers of that region had anticipated and pre- pared for an unusually large crop, and had notified the railroad authorities in time that there would be an extraordi- nary demand for both common and re- frigerator cars. and that they felt safe In assuming that all their fruit would be shipped promptly. It may be possi- ble that the transportation companies did their best, but the shippers do not think so, as Is shown by the fact that suits for more than $200,o00 have already been filed, and others are In contemplation. This shows at least that the farmers think there Is blame for their great loss.
 We again remark that the figures and proofs given in these statements all point to the necessity of establishing | for the protection of fruit | growers. If conditions arc as bad in other portions of the South as they are In the Carolinas 1t is safe to say that the loss to strawberry growers on &C., count of lack of prompt and adequate | shipping facilities will amount to mill | lions for this season alone, and the | same trouble may occur next season. | the fruit growers and cause | hem to devote their time to something | ,lse? Certainly that would not be sur orising, and it would be a misfortune, Tor 1t is agreed that strawberries are lmong the most wholesome of all our native fruits. Old pr. Boteter was not lar wrong when he declared that i Doubtless God could have made bet er berry, but doubtless God never did"
 But 1t is not merely in their fresh condition and when just gathered that hey are desirable, though then at their pest, of course. The art of canning has reached such perfection that the most and delicate fruits can be thus preserved for future use, thus serving he double purpose of saving and util- zing the surplus and of providing a means whereby we may have such 'ruits at all seasons of the year. We nave not a shadow of doubt that thess millions of boxes of berries which rot ed and were dumped into the garbage pile could have been sold for paying prices if they had been canned while resh. It is plainly the only way to lvoid such conditions and losses as we lave referred to above. Let us can.
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