100 THE HIGH COST OF LIVING 



if they will, and by a variety of devices prevent 

 the produce of the competitor from ever reaching 

 the market. It was the privately owned refriger- 

 ator-cars that enabled the packere of the West to 

 perfect their monopoly and drive competition out 

 of this field. The packing-houses are few in num- 

 ber but their earnings are colossal. The earnings of 

 Armour & Company in 1916 were $20,100,000 as 

 against $7,509,000 in 1914. The earnings of Swift 

 & Company in 1916 amounted to $20,465,000 as 

 compared with $9,450,000 two years earlier. The 

 earnings of Morris & Company, Wilson & Company, 

 and other packers were equally high, while the earn- 

 ings of the United Fruit Company shot up from 

 $2,264,000 in 1914 to $11,943,000 in 1916. 



It is a not uncommon experience for farmers to 

 send a car-load of fruit, of vegetables, or of other 

 produce to market and be advised that there is no 

 sale for it, and the shipper will have to lose the 

 freight as well. After one or more experiences of this 

 kind the producer goes out of business. He aban- 

 dons that particular line of production. He per- 

 mits his fiiiit and vegetables to rot on the ground. 

 When the dairyman casts up his accounts and finds 

 that the price he receives for liis milk does not pay 

 for the feed of his cattle, he goes out of the dairy 

 business. After the local truck-gardener has seen 

 his food spoil at the station because of the inabihty 

 or unwillingness of the railroads to market it, he 



