508 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



freight rates could not be obtained that left any margin for profit in selling the 

 peaches. 



In western Michigan, however, our former difficulties have been removed, and the 

 competition between railroad lines and steam navigation on the lake has produced a 

 rate under which our fruit can be profitably handled during the entire season, and still 

 leave, as we have every reason to oelieve, a very satisfactory profit to the transportation 

 lines. 



But it is believed that there is still room for improvement. The present status of 

 the question presents three points that demand our attention. The matter of first 

 importance is promptness of delivery. It is most essential that the fruit be delivered 

 by the carrying lines at an early hour in the morning, if taken to Chicago or Milwau- 

 kee, our general markets, so that it may be placed on sale during the best market hours. 

 It is probably a safe estimate to say that in one day during the season just past, a loss 

 of ten cents per package was entailed on the growers of this vicinity, because a train 

 of seventeen cars, containing upward of 30,000 packages, did not deliver its fruit in 

 Chicago until nearly noon. This was an aggregate loss of at least §3,000. Another 

 desideratum is careful handling. Ripe fruit in particular is greatly injured by rough 

 handling, and unquestionaly the fruitgrowers of western Michigan have sustained a 

 greater loss than, perhaps, they are aware, on account of the practice the employes of 

 transportation lines have had of pitching the packages into and out.of the cars. Those 

 in the vicinity of Fennville are more fortunate than heretofore on this account because of 

 the arrangement they made with the C. & W. M. railway company to load and unload 

 their own fruit. So with us this evil is largely overcome, but still there is room for 

 improvement in this particular. 



The third question — and the one which is engaging the attention of our fruitgrowers 

 more largely than any other — is the matter of freight rates. During the season just 

 closed the managers of the C. & W. M. railway have shown a disposition to deal very 

 fairly with the shippers along their line, and have made very generous concessions in the 

 way of reduced rates. 



As a result, peach-growers near Fennville have been able to effect a saving over 

 former rates nearly great enough to pay the expense of picking and packing their 

 fruit. Very naturally, therefore, a very cordial feeling exists between the growers and 

 the railway company. But with all we have gained in this line we are still paying not 

 far from the rate that peach-growers in southern Illinois are granted on a haul of three 

 tunes the distance from Fennville to Chicago. It is understood that better rates could 

 be doubtless secured if the C. & W. M. railway company controlled the entire line to 

 Chicago instead of having to run their cars part of the way over the Michigan Central 

 tracks. It is a question worthy of due consideration, if it is not advisable to encourage 

 the managers of the C. & W. M. in their effort to transfer our fruit to boats at Benton 

 Harbor, so far as is practicable, until a lower rate can be secured on an all-railway line 

 to Chicago. 



Along the lake shore the peach-growers have been rather less fortunate in the matter 

 of rates than their Fennville neighbors. Early in the season the boat owners united 

 in fixing the rate at five cents per fifth-bushel package. Many of the growers consid- 

 ered that unnecessarily high, and boats were engaged to carry the fruit at four cents 

 per fifth basket. Although this was one half cent above the railway tariff at Fenn- 

 ville, as well as that to which the other boats cut as soon as the fruitgrowers' line was 

 fairly established, still the effort proved fairly successful so far as docks could be 

 obtained. 



Conditions in other localities are different from those prevailing in this vicinity; but 

 the three general principles indicated obtained throughout the west Michigan fruit 

 belt. 



The best method of obtaining these demands may well engage our attention. The 

 first essential toward gaining our ends, that might be noticed, is organization. Organ- 

 ization should be entered into, not for the purpose of war, but to prevent it. The 

 fruitgrowers should organize in order that they may deal with lines of transportation 

 and be dealt with. In a word, this method should be adopted because it is the one 

 instrument generally recognized and made use of in successful business affairs. 



And the importance of each fruitgrower's taking a personal interest in the matter of 

 organization can not be too strongly urged. The benefits gained by the Fennville Fruit- 

 shippers' association are generally recognized. There is not a fruit-shipper in the vicin- 

 ity, no matter whether he favors the action taken by the shippers or not, who has not 

 gained financially on account of the work accomplished through this organization. 

 Very few of us, indeed, would like to see it suspended. And yet it will not continue 

 unless a sufficient interest is manifested in it to do so. And most assuredly its work will 

 not continue unless the organization is kept up. No fear need be indulged about the 



