The ranch. [volume] (Seattle, Wash.) 1902-1914, 1908-09-01

readers Of this department.
EDITOR OF THE RANCH
Greed often overshoOts itself. This
old saying is illustrated in the course
pursued by some of the express COM
panies in their charges for shipping
fruit | know that the Northern Elk
press Company has in the past reaped
a rich harvest in shipping fresh fruits
from the Yakima valley. Our firm
f. Walden & Sons-have, during the
past twelve years, paid this company
thousands of dollars for carrying our
peaches, pears, plums, prunes, april
cots and early apples to the markets
both east and west. We have never
been GROWERS, but have spoken we'll
of the company. But we cannot con-
tinue to do business under it's present
rates and classification. The COM
pany claims that it has not raised
the rates, but this statement in some
cases is not true. The rate on apples
this year from our station-TOppen-
ish-to Seattle and doubtless some
other Sound points, is 80 cents per
hundred which is higher than it has
ever been before. But the chief cause
of our complaint is it's classification.
The company claims that it bills our
fruits out at actual weight. This is
doubtless true in some cases, but is
not true in all cases, as our express
bills in my possession will show. We
commenced shipping early summer ap-
pies to Seattle July 8, and kept it up
for few days and quit All these
apples were billed out at so lbs.
for each box. That made the express
charges As cents per box. One such
shipment sold for Is and IS cents
per box. We received, after express
charges and commission were paid,
just "a cents per box. Our boxes cost
us II cents in the fiat. Hauling the
material to our ranch and making
up the boxes added cents more. We
paid our packers 5 cents per box for
packing. The wrapping and lining
paper cost us cents more for each
box Picking and hauling the apples
to the packing shed and then hauling
to the station cost us cents more.
All this aggregates 26 cents per box.
This left us cents out of pocket and
nothing for care of our orchards i'll
pruning, spraying, thinning, etc., max
ing the whole cost about so cents per
box.
1t can be seen that we were out of
pocket 26 cents on each box of these
apples. 1t may be claimed that this
was an exceptional case; it was. But
had these apples sold for $1.00 per
box we would have still been out of
pocket cents on each box Had
they sold at $1.25 per box we would
have received 17.5 cents net per box;
and had they sold for $3.50 per box
we would have received but 40 cents
as our net returns. One dollar and
fifty-cents was the highest price we
received 1t can be seen by this
statement that the express company
received more in any case for trans
porting our apples to market than we
received in profits, while in other
cases we were left out of pocket 80
cents per box We can not do busi-
ness that way, and have quit
When it comes to peaches, the
charges are prohibitive. We can't
pay them and we won't pay them.
In former years it cost us Is cents
to ship a box of peaches-when we
had three boxes or more-to Seattle
or Tacoma, and Is cents to Spokane.
We shipped some years as high as
5000 boxes by express; this year we
will ship none. What we are doing
other growers are doing. Can the ex-