The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1905-05-28
DELAYS i'm Transportation.


quart for actual expense of market
ing.
Delays In Transportation.
Many a car load of 400 crates of
berries during the past season has laid
on the platform for a day and night,
then was shipped by refrigerator
and delayed EN- route for a day or
more, arriving on the market about
four or five days after being picked, in
poor condition, and sold for not eX-
ceeding five cents per quart. Out of
the sales a commission of per cent.
is deducted by the commission mer-
chant, and the freight amounting to
$500 per car is paid, leaving possibly
q few dollars for the shipper with
which to pay the picker and crate
manufacturer, but nothing for his
labor or fertilizers. This damage
caused by delay in transportation IS
much greater for this year than that
caused by a total destruction of the
fruit, and is more to be reckoned with
in estimating the total loss. A car
leaves Chadbourn on Thursday by reg
ular schedule: it should arrive in New
York on Friday night and be ready
for Saturdays market which opens at
2 o'clock and closes at 5 o'clock a. M,
so that when the day opens the per-
ries will be in the hands of the retail
dealers. The car is delayed en- route,
and arrives after o'clock Saturday
morning and consequently is not put
on the market until Monday morning,
when the berries are in poor condition
and sell for about enough to pay
freight. The transportation companies
get 1920 freight and refrigeration for
a car thus delayed, but have never
admitted their liability for a delay of
"a hours, and have always declined to
pay such claims. If the minimum car
of 800 crates is shipped, which was
not the usual case this season, the
amount of freight IS $240 per car.
The Total Damage.
The estimates of the total damage
from all sources, including lack of
cars, delay in transportation, overload
ing and rains ranges all the way from
33 ID to so per cent. of the value
of the crop. When every element of
loss is taken into consideration it is
not lmconserVatiVe to place the loss
between 100000 and $75O.000. But
this does not mean that there viii
be business failures or a suspension
of the industry. The growers and
the local merchants will have no. diff
Guilty in meeting their obligations or
arranging to have them carried until
another season. The culture of the
strawberry will continue on as large
a scale as in the past and every pre-
caution will be taken to avoid another
such disaster, and many of the evils
will be remedied by another season.
It has been a most unusual year IN
every respect and there is no one
cause for it, Nature played its part in
the catastrophe Last year the season
opened with 80 car loads on the End
and went to 70 on Monday, the oath.
The increase in demand then became
SO rapid that no one could tell what
the next day would bring forth. Ii
was well known that there was 4
largely increased crop and the Caro-
linz Fruit and Truckers Journal had
kept these facts before the public and
this increase in acreage more than
offset the damage by frosts. and it
could be seen that the crop would be
much larger than that of 1904. There
should have been at least 200 cars
on the ground up to the time 500 had
been furnished, and it is not likely that
another car famine will occur soon.
1t is not certain what was the effect
of the A. c. L. having an exclusive
contract with the Armour car lines and
whether it would have been possible
Armour's. On the S. A. l.. between
Wilmington and Charlotte the berry
business is only i'm it's infancy. and the
traffic is yet small The following
clipping from the Carolina Fruit and
c., of date May 10, 1905, shows that