PROCEEDINGS OF THE ANNUAL MEETING. 105 



It is to organization that I look with hope for any further improvement 

 that will come to the transportation of our fruits. There should be a closer 

 communion between the fruitgrowers and the transportation companies. 

 They should be made to feel they are a part of our business, and a very 

 important part, too. They must be made to realize that if we go on and 

 enlarge our fruit plantations, they must keep pace with us, in giving us 

 improved facilities for getting our fruit to the consumer cheaply, quickly, 

 and in good condition. In the past some of the railway officials have been 

 invited to our fruit meetings. This I think should be encouraged more in 

 the future, that there may be a better understanding on the part of the 

 officials as to the needs of the growers, and also that the growers may more 

 fully understand what was possible for the transportation companies to 

 give them. 



I take little stock in this monopoly cry, indulged in, in some agricult- 

 ural quarters, against railways. They are undoubtedly in their business 

 to make money, but, so far as I have had dealings with the managers per- 

 sonally, I have found them accommodating, broad, brainy men, who were 

 sagacious enough to see that it would be to their advantage to help biiild 

 up a business rather than to destroy it. I therefore think if we will go to 

 them in a business-like way, through our organizations, and tell them 

 what we need, they will try to meet us half way. 



One of the first requisites in securing good facilities is to raise plenty 

 of fruit, so there will be a business of importance enough to enlist the 

 attention of the transportation companies. Without this we can not 

 expect much improvement. One locality can not well make arrangements 

 that will answer the purpose of another; each will have to work out a sys- 

 tem best suited to its own needs. But whenever the conditions are such 

 that what is known as the granger system can be used, it will be found to 

 be one of the very best, as that on the Illinois Central, where the berry- 

 growers load their own freight, and as soon as it is done the train pulls out 

 with all possible speed to Chicago to be in time for the morning market. 

 Without such an arrangement you can readily see how impossible it would 

 be for the people to raise and market so vast an amount of such tender 

 fruit in presentable condition. A man is kept in Chicago to see to the 

 proper unloading and forwarding to the commission houses. By this 

 system, it has been stated, the rate of freight from Cobden, Illinois, was 

 reduced from $2.50 to 22 cents — a valuable saving, I assure you. 



Something of this plan has been in successful operation on the West 

 Michigan from the peach belt to Chicago. I had hoped that a train might 

 have been started from Grand Kapids, instead of Holland, as now. I 

 believe it would give us quick connection with the west, a system which 

 would be desirable for us and that I think we should work to bring about. 

 Inasmuch as our fruit goes out to so many different points from Grand 

 Rapids, there should be a night train going out over the different roads to 

 important points that might be reached by the morning — say the Saginaw 

 valley, Detroit, Toledo, Fort Wayne, Milwaukee by car and boat and 

 many other points that could be well reached. Have these trains held as 

 late as possible and make their runs, so that the fruit can be brought in 

 from the orchards and started on its way and reach these places of destina- 

 tion in as fresh state as it now is put on the Grand Rapids market, when 

 it stands in our barns over night on the wagon. Then these points could 

 receive the fruit in so fresh a state it could be distributed from them in as 

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