1*21 



the railroad companies had issued an order that all peach 

 baskets must be covered with wooden tops. Think what 

 that meant ! The peach growers had all bought all their bas- 

 kets with the cloth covering. Tbey did not intend to use 

 wooden tops, — had no wooden tops, and it was impossible to 

 ship peaches under those conditions. The committee induced 

 the railroad companies to do away with that ruling, but 

 we have to look out the coming year regarding the ruling. 

 Another thing was this : We had a ruling from Washington 

 that in ordering cars we must, at the same time, designate 

 its destination, working absolute chaos with the peach busi- 

 ness. No peach grower can tell where his car is to go before 

 it is packed and it is sold, and it may be that someone will 

 w^ant one kind of peach, and somebody will want another. 

 How does he know where he is going to sell it before he or- 

 ders the car? 



One obstacle after another, through this organized ef- 

 fort, was overcome. T]u*ough the efforts of the Committee 

 on Transportation. 75 cars were shelved by the New Haven 

 Railroad, and thus enabled us to help move the peach crop. 



The peach growers of New England have organized a 

 permanent organization committee with the idea of study- 

 ing what the effort m.ight amount to. This was not funda- 

 mental, as you recognize. It wasn 't a consignment of crops, 

 it isn't a general uniform standardization of the peach 

 business. It was simply taking care of very outstanding 

 difficulties and hindrances. The peach growers, so far as we 

 have been able to learn, say that they have never had such 

 a satisfactory year of marketing their crops; and never in 

 the history of the industry, no matter how small the crop, 

 was there a time but what they had gluts, but this year 

 they say there were no gluts. 



So satisfactory was the outcome of this, that you might 

 call, in a way, a superficial effort, that the permanent or- 

 ganization committee made further investigations of the 

 peach growers who said almost to a man, "Why not include 

 apples and other fruit in this organized effort, and why not 



