Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1922-06-17
Port Facilities As An Aid to
Agricultural PROSPERITY

Agricultural PROSPERITY
IT. HAT State-owned and State-operated
port terminal at Savannah would be
of far-ranging advantage to the ag-
ricultural interests of Georgia is clearly in
Dictated in the findings of The Journals in
vestigation of facilities of this sort at Mon
treal, Canada. 1t was largely for the pur-
pose OF serving and promoting such inter-
ests in the Dominion that the world-famed
developments at that city were undertaken,
and directly to this end has gone almost one
half of the thirty-one million dollars there
invested
r For grain elevators alone the outlay has
been five million dollars, every penny of
which has contributed one way or another,
to the wheat growers prosperity. The grain,
as>Mr. Winter relates in his thdught-arousing
series of articles now running in The Jour
nal, is unloaded from cars or lake steamers,
Is weighed, is stored for ten days, and is
loaded into outgoing ships, all for charge
OF only one cent bushel. Fortunate indeed
are producers who thus receive the best of
marketing service at a cost so exceedingly
low. Two and half million dollars of the
cost of the Montreal port terminal went into
the recently completed cold storage ware
house, in which Georgia., as a potential en-
p1re OF cattfe-raising, dairying, truck farm
ing and allied industries, well may be inter-
ested. OF this wonderfully equipped plant
Mr.. Winter writes Dressed meats slaught-
cred in the cooperative slaughter houses of
Canadian ranchmen in the far interior, along
the Great Lakes and even to thu west of the
lakes may be shipped in, refrigerator cars
over the Canadian Pacific or Grand Trunk
railroads to the port of Montreal, travelling
their long journey at express train speed, as
Georgia peaches are rushed to northern mar
kets in refrigerator cars assembled in the
railroad yards of Atlanta. In Montreals
cold storage warehouse these dressed meats
can be unloaded in an enclosed parking
track capable of holding ten cars at once,
where the temperature is KEPT down by
means of concrete walls and cold storage
doors at both ends of the parking track.
They can be placed in cold storage chambers
and stored as long as necessary while await
ing sale, and the harbor commission will is
sue warehouse receipts to the owners. for
use as the basis of bank credits when the
same are. needed. When the meats are sold,
they can be loaded directly from the ware
house into cold storage chambers of ships
. alongside of the warehouse. What is true
of dressed meats, as regards facilities for
handling in the cold storage warehouse, is
$50 true in (~qual measure as to dressed
poultry and dairy products"
Besides the seven and half million dol
lars thus expended directly with a view to
adequate, efficient, and economical market
ing of the farmers products, upwards of
four and half million of the dredging and
including wharves, piers, sheds and railways
may fairly be set down as an investment for
agriculture. It was primarily for this pur-
pose, indeed, that the Dominion of Canada
mustered it's governmental sinews to the es-
tablishment of these far-renowned port serv-
ices at the metropolis on the st. Lawrence;
and it is not surprising to learn that among
the especially earnest supporters of the en-
terprise in the Canadian Parliament are the
agricultural interests.
Now Georgia, with similar needs and SINH
lar opportunities, can we'll afford to take a
leaf from the experience of our thrifty neigh
>bors to the north. Not Savannah alone, not
the coast counties alone, not South Georgia
alone, but the whole Commonwealth, from
surf to mountain crest, is directly and pro-
foundly concerned in the development of
port facilities that will enable our producers
to come fully into their own and our people
to attain to that prosperity which their royal
resources vouchsafe.
All interests and all regions of the State
assuredly will be benefited if tides of world
commerce are harnessed to the machinery
by which their products are marketed. The
cooperative cotton-selling movement assured
ly will be strengthened if there is established
ut the seaboard StateSowned warehouse and
kindred conveniences, known the world over
Tor efficiency and for volume of business. In
deed, there is no field of production, agr1cul-
tural or Industrial where it is of advantage
10 sell large quantities directly to large con-
umers that will not be served by such IA
,lities In collecting data on this subject,
Tor a report which it will submit to the forth
)oming session of the General Assembly, the
seorgia Harbor Commission is doing work
f utmost Importance, and is doing 1t well.
All Georgians who are alert to the state
larger interests, especially all members OF
the Legislature, should give the matter dill
gent attention. and in due season act as
TRENDS of prosperity and progress.