444 _ IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



know these things have been done, and that we were not com- 

 pelled to take twenty-four hours longer, because that is just exact- 

 ly what it means to ship out of the central part of Iowa. 



Now the zone district comes down the Northwestern Railroad 

 and strikes twelve miles north of me. It goes west to Reinbeck, 

 the junction of the Rock Island and the Great Western. The 

 Great Western ships at 7 o'clock in the morning and the Rock 

 Island at 2 o'clock, arriving in the market at the same time. If we 

 are going to regulate the receipts in the market at Chicago, there 

 isn't a much better way than the zone system. The pick-up train 

 is a train that will commence at one end of your division and 

 pick up all the stuff that goes out that day. 



Another thing: Four weeks ago last Monday I put in an 

 order for a car for hogs. The car is not here ; the hogs have been 

 delayed four weeks, and a few of them are breaking down. I 

 think we have had two cars go out of our station in the last four 

 weeks. I do not think there are but two or three more cars in 

 Tama county that are going to Chicago. Cars have gone to 

 Cedar Rapids, or possibly Tama. When you do that, you take 

 from 25 cents to $1.25 less. Does it look as if the zone proposi- 

 tion was not an equitable distribution of the cars, leaving part 

 of us at least to bear the burden of the breakdowns? My part of 

 the state is not the only one that is having trouble. Take it 

 around Reinbeck and other competition points they seem to be 

 getting cars out. I think an equitable solution of the problem 

 would be to count the hogs to be marketed in every county in the 

 state of Iowa, and let the cars go to those places in regulation, in 

 accordance with the stuff that goes to market. You never can do 

 it in the world so long as you operate under the zone system and 

 confine it to a general line. I will be perfectly willing to take three 

 days in the week, if you will start our trains from the end of the 

 division and run the cars to the main line and put them into a con- 

 solidated train. But to be dragged along, shot into this station 

 and that station, all the way along, until you get to Chicago — it 

 is not right. That is what is the cause of broken legs that Mr. 

 Eisele spoke about. The fact of the matter is that the zone sys- 

 tem as now operated is not a success, and never will be a success 

 until it is definitely arranged, so that you can get some idea of 

 starting from some definite point and having a pick-up train, con- 

 solidating it and coming straight thru. It seems to me the admin- 



