130 THE CULTIVATION OF THE 



swiftly perishable, and whatever is done with it must be 

 done quickly or it will cease to represent value. This 

 being- the case, as with all other such merchandize, their 

 handling is expensive, because the animals which bring 

 them from the orchard must move quickly, the men who 

 load them must move quickly, and the cars or boats that 

 transport them, must have extra-quick dispatch. The 

 whole business is done, as it were, on the run, and when 

 one comes to investigate the difference between 

 transporting a ton of freight an hundred miles, at the 

 rate of fifteen miles an hour, and transporting it the same 

 distance at the rate of forty miles an hour, he can 

 appreciate, in some degree, why we are compelled to pay 

 high prices for transporting our fruit. It is a grand and 

 sure business to the transportation companies, but a very 

 precarious one to the producer, this matter of seeking 

 distant markets for our peaches, at high rates of speed. 

 There is no shadow of doubt of one thing, that is, it is to 

 the interest of the grower to sell his fruit at his railroad 

 station or steamboat landing, or, in other words, it is to 

 the growers interest to bring the buyer as near to him as 

 possible and there sell him his fruit, and let the buyer 

 ship to distant points, where he has his market well in 

 hand, and has the choice of fruit to supply it. The 

 grower has the advantage of personally supervising the 

 sale, and has a share in making his prices ; whereas, if he 

 ships to commission men, be they ever so honest, he 



