CO-OPERATION OF RAILROAD TRANSPORTATION OF 

 PERISHABLE PRODUCTS. 



Dr. Mary E. Pennington, 



Director, Food Research Laboratory, Bureau of Chemistry, 

 United States Department of Agriculture. 



The day of the farmer's market wagon is passed. The broad zones 

 of suburban residences surrounding our cities preclude extensive food 

 production within feasible hauling distance of the market. Here and 

 there a small gathering of wagons dispense goods to a limited section of 

 the town, but as a source of provender for the city's population it is of 

 but small moment. We must depend upon steam or electricity to bring 

 the food supply from the region of production to the region of consump- 

 tion, and the producing center for this eastern country seems each year 

 to be more remote. Even what we term '^ nearby produce" must come 

 by rail; therefore, the farmer as well as the consumer is dependent upon 

 the railroads. 



This traffic in the transportation of perishables has grown with 

 startling rapidity and has far surpassed in volume and efficiency any 

 precedents furnished by the old world. Its very newness and strides 

 make for unrest, because conditions are changing with such rapidity that 

 neither the shipper, on the one hand, nor the carrier, on the other, can 

 continue one mode of business long enough for the methods involved to 

 become perfected by routine use and the unconscious absorption of 

 details by the human part of the machinery involved. There is a very 

 detrimental amount of ignorance on the part of both shipper and carrier 

 concerning their respective business. This is partly because the whole 

 subject of the handling of perishable products has been neglected until 

 recently, when the pinch of high prices has made us look for wastes and 

 extravagances. 



As a part of the investigation of the handling of perishables, the 

 United States Department of Agriculture has been studying, co-opera- 

 tively with the railroads, how foodstuffs can be best and most econom- 

 ically transported. This is not a problem that can be worked out at the 

 office desk; neither do experiments with small quantities and prepared 

 conditions suffice. The goods must be by car-lots and the observations 

 must cover hundreds of routine shipments, month after month, that the 

 influence of seasonal weather and seasonal freight may be taken into 

 account. Because refrigeration plays so important a role in the preserva- 

 tion of foodstuffs, a large part of the work of the department has been to 



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