Norwich bulletin., 1922-09-22

Cwritten Especially for The Bulletin) One can hardly pick up a newspaper from any part of the country these days without finding fresh evidence of the ut isr failure of the food transporting and distributing machinery. Papers from east, from west, from south all add their items of consrmation.
 Michigan papers tell of an apple grower near Frankfort thst state, who shipped forty seven bushels of Duchess apples across Lake Michigan to a Wisconsin commission man. After the latter had deducted freight and brokerage and other charges. he mailed the apple grower a check for three cents.
 Another farmer sent over fifty bushels He got a check for five cents
 third hadn't even so good luck as this. He despatched a large consignment and, after due lapse of time, received a bill for eighteen cents to cover deficit in freight and broker's charges.
 Pears, plums and peaches are in about the same boat. Picked. sorted and deliv- cred at the Frankfort docks, fruit of all these kinds brings only from thirty to forty cents a bushel basket. The bas- ksts. in small quantities, cost twenty-five cents apiece this year.
 Farmers arc giving their fruit away to anyone who will come and pick It. In that one Michigan county alone. experl- snced growers estimate that ten thousand bushels of apples, pears. plums and peaches are rotting on the ground, be- cause 1t costs the growers less to let them rot than to pick and market them.
 And this with peaches of inferior grade retailing in the Chicago markets. just across the lake. for an average af $3.75 basket Water freight between the Michigan orchards and the Chicago fruit stores all the way, too. @ Tn the big Missouri fruit belt fancy Ozark peaches are wasting by the carload because the orchardists can't get ten -ents a bushel for them. Only a few niles away. in St. Louis. they are selling or,t2.50 a basket.
 Georgia watermelon grower shipped load of monsters to New York city lasi month. Two thousand of them. all of the Tind which were then retailing in that .ity for dollar apiece. He got s20 for he two thoussnd-one cent apiece.
 Ia the western New York fruit country nore carloads of noble peaches are beins allowed 10 fall to the ground and rot be. ,ause the farmers can get only thirty ssnt sa bushel at the best and can't sell a |. n Albany. two hundred miles away by lirect railroad route, the dealers are de handing s5 a bushel for those sam, beaches.
 The Chicago Journal commenting ol he re9orts it has received, says of thu mutation there:
 Apples. pears. peaches. pIunas are al Feliing in wholesale carload lots at fgure which nay the grower the scantiest profit rf he picks. crates and ships the outps liuself. his returns from the commission and transportation companies are as like y to show a loss as a profit
 When apples. for instance. net the Michi ran grower five cents a. bushel at the or ,hzrd, and s few days later yell in Chi ,ago's retail stores at 2 rate equivalent { i5 hushel. there is something obviousl wrong in distribution methods Transportation facilities ase ample Tn handlers of foodsturs. fruits include ct vigorously deny any plot to rob consun- ITS But inc fact remains that the grow 'rs get about one-tenth what Chicago consumers pay.
 Who gets the rest"
 Kansas paper remarks that wit freight rates too high and prices too lo 70 pay for picking hacking and sortin C. "nore than half of this coui>y.y's gres fruit crop is rotti1g where it grew TT loss runs far into the millions. It is tragedy"
 Some years ago an eastern farm pap, vas furiously assailed by the city orga1 If Dig business" because 1t asserted thi he farmer averaged no more than thirt. Eve cents on the dollar the consun1 paid. This assertion was bitterly d nounced as a-libel on the business mt who stood between the producer and tl consumer. It was equivalent to callir hem hogs or thieves, their advoeat ihrieked
 Tn this fruit matter 1t now clearly a 'ssrs that the farmer gets only from oi -ent to ten cents of the dollar the co yJmer pays. Who gets the rest?" as 'ne critic. "It Is a tragedy,' declar mother
 Well, that shows some gain. Instead 'itupersting the man who tells the tru as a liar and libeiler at least two new 1apers are now themselves polntedly st ing forth the truth and calling for axplanstion. It might well be wished th fney should get it. but they wont. Tn won't. for the simple reason that the or ,xp,austion would involve a contest and plea Of guilty.
 Really when you get down ts bPs tackE. it is, a. city problem. It's soluti should be laid on the cities and tn consumers. rather than on the farm For while the farmer is indeed bel deprived of fair price for his goods {