PROCEEDINGS OF THE WINTER MEETING. 79 



agree upon something, we could make some arrangement whereby we 

 could be benefited. Certainly we are just about raising our peaches and 

 plums on shares. We are getting about half, perhaps a third, and I 

 don't know as I blame the railroad companies so much. They are some- 

 what to blame, but we are to blame also; and before we can ask the 

 transportation companies to help us we must put ourselves in shape so 

 that they can help us. Now, you very well know that a railway company 

 can not take ten, twenty, or one hundred baskets of fruit and land them 

 anywhere and take care of them when they get there. The express com- 

 panies can, and while a railway company can take care of a barrel of salt 

 or something that won't perish, peaches and plums, when they get to 

 the market, must be cared for, and the railway companies can't do this. 

 Now, last summer I had a practice of putting up my best fruits so that 

 at the bottom of the basket the peaches were as good as on top, with 

 the exception that at the bottom the basket is a little smaller than at 

 the top, and I put my name on each basket; and while I was shipping 

 peaches to Chicago, day after day for three months, peaches and plums, 

 and sometimes to Milwaukee, I kept getting letters from Dayton, South 

 Bend, Canton, and all through Indiana, saying "peaches are worth so 

 much today and are scarce." (About twice what I was getting in Chi- 

 cago.) "Ship us a carload at once." Well, now, I couldn't do that. 

 I would have been glad to, but you know there is no one grower in this 

 part of the country who has a carload of peaches of his own, that he 

 can ship at once. When I got those letters I would go over to the depot, 

 thinking I could get a nice price at Dayton or South Bend (for the tele- 

 gram would say the market was high and bare of fruit) and look around. 

 There were growers there with two or three carloads of peaches in the 

 aggregate. I would go to these men and say : "Here, if we can get up 

 a carload of peaches and ship them to Dayton, or somewhere down there, 

 we can get a nice price." "Well, mine are all marked South Bend," or 

 "Mine are marked Detroit," etc., and the result was, mine had to go right 

 along where the rest of them went. We had no organization, we were 

 shipping in the dark. We did not know whether there was a glut where 

 we were shipping, and yet at other places, not far away, there might be 

 an entire scarcity of peaches. I am not disposed to find fault with the 

 railway companies, as I said. If we can put ourselves in a position 

 where we can say to them, "We want you to take a carload of peaches 

 to Lafayette, Ind., and when they arrive there will be a man to take 

 care of them," we can get the peaches shipped at a reasonable rate and 

 on time, and when they get to their destination they will bring good 

 prices. My idea is, there is a remedy for this. I don't blame the com- 

 mission men. They will not handle your fruit unless you send it to 

 them. If you can be independent of them, you are all right; but so long 

 as you keep yourselves in the condition where you must send them your 

 peaches, you will have to take what they give you. I have in my mind 

 a sort of remedy, but I regret to say I fear the farmers and fruitgrowers 

 are so jealous of each other, have so little confidence in each other, that 

 we never can make it work. We tried this once, and very soon found 

 trouble. But now for the remedy. I would call a meeting of the fruit- 

 growers in the vicinity of Hart. I would form an organization and 



