208 TEANSACTIONS OF THE 



we doubt if more than eight or ten trains additional will be shipped. 

 These cars are scattered to all available markets, from Denver to Boston, 

 Philadelphia, New York, etc. Of course a large proportion is distributed 

 from Chicago. The fruit shipped by the above named parties has all been 

 purchased outright by them, and has not been sent forward on commission, 

 at the risk of the growers. This is the difference between our method of 

 business and that pursued by the California Fruit Union. We will be 

 pleased at any time to give you any further information in our power. 



Very truly, 



W. R. STRONG & CO. 



Office of the California Fruit Union, j 



San Francisco, August 20, 1886. j 



N. P. Chipman, Red Bluff, California: 



Dear Sir: Your letter of the fourteenth instant addressed to our Presi- 

 dent, A. T. Hatch, asking for any information with regard to the train ship- 

 ments by the Union, has been referred to me to answer. Pardon the delay, 

 but press of business has made it impossible for me to answer sooner. 



To preface the few statistics which I have now at my command, let me 

 say that our shipments so far this year have proved most forcibly that 

 before anything like the full benefit of the new train rates can be felt by 

 the fruit producers the railroad companies will be compelled to make great 

 concessions in the matter of time and the number of cars which shall con- 

 stitute a train. East of the Missouri we have no cause to complain of the 

 speed made, as they take our special fruit trains through ahead of the pas- 

 senger trains. But the railroad people fail to appreciate, seemingly, at this 

 end of the route, the importance which a difference of a few hours makes 

 in the returns to the fruit producer. The Eastern people realize this thor- 

 oughly, as is evidenced by their " fast tea trains," which run ahead of the 

 passenger trains all through the Eastern States. In fact, so much differ- 

 ence does the forty-eight hours make in the salable value of the fruit in 

 Eastern markets, that many of our members prefer to pay $600 per car 

 which will go through on passenger time to a $300 rate on a car which will 

 take six and a half days to reach Chicago, which is the fastest time made 

 by the "fruit train " so far, and the actual money returns bear them out in 

 their belief. 



Then, too, we must have some concessions with regard to early shipments 

 of fruit. 



Take the vicinity of Winters, Solano County; parties there this year sent 

 some ten to fifteen cars before any one else had made up a single car, and 

 it was way long in June before a train was started — about the last, if I 

 remember rightly — while cars were sent by the eighteenth of May. 



During all this time cars were going every day, but at no one time could 

 a sufficient number be collected to take advantage of the railroad offer of a 

 $4,500 rate for a train consisting of nine cars or over, the maximum being 

 eighteen. Should we be able to get together ten, it would bring the freight 

 per car to $450, but we found it impossible, and so contented ourselves as 

 best we could and paid $600, but were determined that before another 

 year's crops had to be moved, backed by the showing of the amount of 

 fruit handled by the Union, under the existing unfavorable circumstances, 

 strenuous efforts would be put forth to reduce the freight per car on early 

 shipments, and also to divide by two the number of cars now required 

 before any reduction could be had. 



