17 



this time might possibly be done instead of loading the wires 

 of the Associated Press with long tales of crime and tragedy 

 not at all necessary to our daily life; and it seems to me that 

 the officers of the Associated Press in Boston might be appealed 

 to to carry these market reports just the same as they do the 

 stock market and grain market and produce market, which 

 they send daily to the "Burlington Free Press" and other New 

 England papers. 



Mr. Selby. I will say to that, that the leased wire is used in 

 connection with the car-lot shipments that I referred to awhile 

 ago. There is one circuit covering Philadelphia, New York and 

 Boston; and another one covering the western circuit out to 

 Chicago, including St. Louis and Omaha as the farthest western 

 points, and information that is required regarding these com- 

 modities takes the wire for ten hours of the day. It is the 

 hardest thing to get a message over those wires because they 

 are constantly busy with the work necessitated by reporting 

 from all the different cities. It is practically an independent 

 proposition, and will have to be, from the volume of it. 



Mr. HoDGKiNS. I would like to ask Mr. Selby if it would be 

 practicable for us by an organized attempt — if this information 

 could not be gotten for some central point in each county for 

 the time being; if by paying for this service they could not get 

 that for the benefit of the particular section of the county. 



Mr. Selby. Now, Mr. Tinkham might be able to answer in 

 that line, because the work you refer to deals more directly with 

 the State work. But this information was disseminated, I be- 

 lieve, from Providence to a number of points over the telephone 

 by their merely paying the charges; the information has been 

 given out to Springfield, and it has been telephoned to other 

 parts radiating from Springfield by their simply paying the tele- 

 phone charges. The Springfield Market Gardeners have been 

 assuming the other half of the obligation in co-operation with 

 the United States government for the service in that city. 



Mr. Flood. Mr. Selby has stated that it was possible for 

 the farmers of, perhaps, Springfield and other places to know 

 at noon as to the market conditions in other centers the pre- 

 vious day. I would like to ask him if it would be practicable, 

 on perishable goods, to know at that time if they could be 

 shipped, for instance, from Hartford to Portland? 



