236 



THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



practical directions for their manage- 

 ment. 



At Riverside they had many a trouble 

 with their raisins, and hearing of Dr. 

 Blower's success they wrote so many let- 

 ters of inquiry that he finally expedited 

 matters by visiting them at their homes 

 and addressing them at their meetings. 

 From this visit they date their era of suc- 

 cessful raisin production. 



His prominence in the raisin industry 

 was such that many forget that he was 

 a leading shipper of fresh fruits. Al- 

 most as soon as the Overland was open for 

 traffic he began shipping grapes and in 

 1869 sent a car-load to Chicago. Ship- 

 pers will be amused to hear that the first 

 lot went in an ordinary freight car, each 

 bunch enclosed in a paper sack and 

 packed in twenty-pound boxes. Intend- 

 ing to give all varieties an impartial test 

 several boxes of Sweet-waters were in- 

 cluded in this lot. Since then the late- 

 ripening, long-keeping and fine-carrying 

 qualities of the Emperor has made it his 

 chosen shipping grape. Cars of Emperor 

 and Tokay have reached New York in 

 good order after twenty-one days of travel. 

 They had strayed, by mistake, through 

 Kentucky and Tennessee and several other 

 states. Some of the early shipments net- 

 ted a left-handed profit of $2,000 per car. 



Not many years since it was supposed 

 that all shipping grapes had been ruined 

 by a rain of six inches. He packed 480 

 crates of Emperors, and ran them into the 

 dryer long enough to get rid of the damp- 

 ness. They reached so hungry a market 

 in such perfect condition they brought 

 him six dollars and ten cents per crate 

 and more than made up for the loss re- 

 sulting from the disaster in his early ship- 

 ments. 



Every year elements of risk are being 

 removed and the shipment of fruit ap- 

 proaches nearer to a staple industry. 

 There remains much to be done to secure 

 so direct and economical a contact be- 

 tween producer and consumer as to dis- 

 tribute the possible output of California 

 where it will find a satisfactory demand. 



HANDLING AND MARKETING FRUIT. 



In 1884 Dr. Blowers was eastern man- 

 ager of the California Fruit Union and 

 active in establishing the auction system 

 for disposing of fresh fruit on arrival. 



The illustration herewith will give a 



better idea of the system than paragraphs 

 of description. To win in handling fresh 

 fruit it is necessary to reach the consumer 

 promptly. After a long trip overland it 

 often gets caught by a fresh shipment 

 while waiting in the rooms of the dealers, 

 great and small, to reach the consumer, in 

 the regular course of trade. Many plans 

 have been made to control this business 

 by special advantages designed to create 

 monopolies. Dr. Blower's influence was 

 always in the direction of such a free dis- 

 tribution that each dealer would share in 

 all the advantages it was possible to give 

 in proportion to his trade and facilities 

 and that all shippers should have benefit 

 of information coming to the Fruit Union. 



The experience of last season empha- 

 sized the necessity of an organization to 

 execute the designs of the Fruit Union 

 and it is to be hoped that those who have 

 had most experience will join with the 

 Fruit Exchange, and with a following in 

 proportion to the present importance of 

 the business proceed to improve upon the 

 plans originally designed by the Fruit 

 Union for the benefit of the industry. 

 The evils of sending three cars where one 

 is needed and leaving other markets for 

 days without any supply are more easily 

 seen than remedied. 



The point has been made that only five 

 millions of the people of the U. S. ever 

 have a chance to buy California fruits and 

 that it is desirable to send regular sup- 

 plies to interior towns that can take less 

 than car lots and have had only small lots 

 at long prices by express. 



This opens a field for more persistent 

 effort than railway officials are likely to 

 bestow and needs a worthy successor to 

 our friend to work for the interest of pro- 

 ducers. Railroad men could distribute 

 small lots of fruit as easily as they man- 

 age the oyster trade if the matter ap- 

 pealed to their pockets as it does to those 

 of producers. So long as the roads have 

 all they can do to carry fruit to main dis- 

 tributing centers there is small hope that 

 they will try plans to cause the demand to 

 keep pace with the supply. With more 

 cars and more roads they will find a way 

 to reach more points. 



During ' 93 Dr. Blowers took a leading 

 interest in a plan to make the natural 

 facilities of Yolo County available for irri- 

 gation and power. He wrote many 

 articles for the Woodland papers that 



