THE NECESSITY FOR TERMINAL MARKETS. 



By Hon. Cyrus C. Miller, 



President of the Borough of the Bronx; Chau-man of the Mayor's Market 

 Commission of the City of New York. 



A witness before the Mayor's Market Commission of New York 

 City recently testified that there were enough peach trees in the orchards 

 of western New York to produce a crop of 10,000 carloads of peaches in 

 five or six years. Fifteen years ago Delaware shipped out 9,000 cars 

 of peaches in one year and a few years ago Georgia shipped out 7,'200 

 carloads. 



In a recently pubHshed newspaper article I read that the apple crop 

 in the Northwest for 1913 was approximately 10,000 cars of fruit; by 

 1916 they estimate that the output will be at least 30,000 cars, and by 

 1920, a total of 60,000 cars. At present prices this will mean finding a 

 market for $51,000,000 worth of fruit. Other districts throughout the 

 country during the past ten years have been planted in large areas with 

 fruit and other food products which must be distributed among the cities 

 and towns. The population of the cities has grown apace in the same 

 period, but their markets have not kept pace either with the increase 

 in production nor the potential increase in consumption. Producers' 

 associations, railroads and middlemen are effecting the best distribution of 

 crops possible with the means at their command, but in the cities the best 

 means available today are the makeshifts that survive a simpler system. 

 There is a great necessity for modern terminal markets if the distribution 

 of food products in the cities is to be helped. What is the use of raising 

 vast quantities of foodstuffs if they cannot be distributed? Bankruptcy 

 confronts owner and consumer alike unless our distributing facilities keep 

 pace with our production. The farmer, the banker, the railroad man, 

 are interested in the first part of the problem; namely, getting the food 

 to the cities. The city man is interested in bringing the food into and dis- 

 tributing it within the city. . 



The question of city markets is a vital one not only to people in the 

 cities but also to the farmers of the country, for all production must 

 have an outlet or it ceases to be profitable, and cities must be supplied with 

 food at reasonable prices or cease to exist. In many cities today the chan- 

 nels of marketing are so badly clogged that they offer obstacles rather than 

 inducements to shippers. On the other hand, we hear constantly of good 

 food spoiling on the farms of the country because it does not pay to market 

 it by our cumbersome and expensive methods. 



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