igo State Horticultural Society. 



cent more freight on them. Kieffer pears are no more perishable than 

 apples- In fact, they are more like rocks during the early part of the 

 shipping season and can be used for ballast if necessity should arise. 

 But the railroad presidents and managers who eat only fancy California 

 Bartletts and pay 5 cents a piece for them, think a high rate must apply for 

 anything called pears. That is the reason some honest fruit growers, with 

 more sense than they are given credit for, stencil the barrels containing 

 common Kielifer pears "Fancy Ben Davis Apples." Should any of them 

 ever be arrested and tried for this offense my verdict, if I were on the 

 jury, would be "Not Guilty." 



Then again there are years when there are large peach crops, and a 

 car load of peaches, will not sell for as much as a car load of apples. 

 When these conditions exist as they often do, since peach trees have been 

 planted all over the country in such enormous quantities, why should the 

 freight on a car of peaches be double that of a car of apples? The rail- 

 road people will tell you because they are more perishable and have to 

 be carried faster. They forget that the grower pays an extra charge 

 for icing, and lose sight of the fact that ordinarily a car load of apples 

 travels about as fast as a car load of peaches. It takes from six to seven 

 clays to get a car of peaches to New York or Boston, and from seven 

 to eight days to get a ear of apples there, so where is the difference in 

 time that warrants the difference in the charges? Whenever growers 

 and shippers can't transport peaches to markets that will consume them 

 without losing money by the operation, they will soon quit the business 

 and one of the geese that lays golden eggs for the railroads will be villed. 

 Let the railroad companies understand this fully, and they will not let 

 the goose die. 



What I have said of peaches applies in a large measure to straw- 

 berries also. 



You are, no doubt, all aware of the abuses that have existed for 

 many years in the private car line refrigerating business. Thanks to the 

 work of the Commission Merchants' League for what it has done, and 

 is still doing, for the relief of the fruit growers in this direction. In- 

 stead of paying private car lines an enormous profit for this service which 

 all comes out of the pockets of the poor, fruit growers, the time is near at 

 hand when the railroads will supply this service to us at actual cost- 



And while I am on this subject of refrigeration, I will read an ab- 

 stract from a letter I received recently from Mr. C. B. Ayers of Chicago, 

 who is president of Commission Merchants' League of the United States. 

 It runs as follows: "Vice President Robbins of the Armour car lines 

 in his testimony before the Interstate Commerce Commission, stated that 



