FOURTEENTH ANNUAL MEETING. 187 



Money Making Ideas in Fruit Packages. 



By J. H. Hale, of South Glastonbury. 



^Ir. President, Ladies and Gentlemen : There is very little 

 indeed to say on the subject. I am on the committee on trans- 

 portation and markets and the President asked me to include 

 a report of that in what little I had to say here to-day. As 

 far as the committee on transportation is concerned, there 

 was practically nothing done last year. The failure of the 

 fruit crop in the state, owing- to the climatic conditions of the 

 winters of 1903 and 1904, made it unnecessary for your com- 

 mittee to look after your railroad arrangements. But to show 

 that the arrangements for the year previous had started up 

 the railroad, the railroad people sent me inquiries early in 

 summer, as they did to some other members of this society, 

 as to what the fruit prospects were in the different sections 

 of the state, and what special arrangements they could give 

 us that would be of advantage to the members of the fruit 

 growers' association of the state of Connecticut, and a little 

 later they followed it again with an offer to furnish any num- 

 ber of refrigerator cars in any part of the state that would be 

 required if we would give them two weeks' notice. The ques- 

 tion of transportation, as you know, while we here in Con- 

 necticut look at it merely as a local affair with our New 

 York, New Haven & Hartford railroad, yet it leads further 

 and takes in our outside shipments, and the matter is up in 

 Congress at the present time, and it shows what influence 

 any body of people may have when they are a mind to push 

 matters. A few years ago, when the interstate commerce 

 commission was unable to enforce its rulings through lack 

 of sufficient power, they asked congress and a few shippers' 

 associations asked congress for more power for the Commis- 

 sion, and they paid very little attention to it, and the same 

 thing happened the next year, and for a number of years 

 since 1896, congress has been asked to take up this matter, 

 and they have turned it down. Last year, when the commit- 

 tee of interstate commerce in the senate and the house were 

 asked to present certain matters, they refused to give them 



