ITS CULTUEE IN CALIFORNIA. 



73 



Riverside Fruit Company gives the cost 

 per box as follows : 



Gathering $0.05 



Packing, including wrapping 30 



Box .15 



Total 0.50 



SHIPPING. As soon as possible after 

 packing the boxes should be shipped. 



MARKETS. Up to the time the Southern 

 Pacific railroad was completed, giving di- 

 rect rail communication with the East, 

 our only market for large quantities of 

 citrus fruits was San Francisco. Hand- 

 ling our products from the early times, 

 when the fruit had not been brought to a 

 high standard, and when the packing was 

 uniformly bad, the San Francisco mer- 

 chants got into a way of slaughtering it, 

 and the growers of Southern California 

 were at their mercy. Now that our peo- 

 ple are making an effort to establish a bet- 

 ter order of things, they find their past bad 

 record and the settled habits of the San 

 Franciscans against them. The metrop- 

 olis of the State is therefore quite general- 

 ly voted an uncertain market. This has 

 induced producers and jobbers within the 

 past two or three years to look eastward 

 for the disposal of their fruits. Arizona 

 and New Mexico are our natural fields of 

 consumption and these have been fully 

 supplied. Markets have been opened 

 also in Denver, Kansas City, St. Louis, 

 nicago, Minneapolis, and some ship- 

 ments have been made as far as the At- 

 lantic seaboard. Not all of these ship- 

 ments have proven satisfactory. This 

 fact is not to be wondered at when we 

 consider that many of the shipments 

 were pioneer efforts. Some of the ven- 

 tures, however, were highly satisfactory. 

 A Riverside shipper cites his experience 

 as follows: 



" My oranges sold in San Francisco last 

 season (1884) from $2 to $4 per box. At 

 about the same time in Denver the same 

 class of my seedling oranges (165 to the 

 box) sold for $ 7.83. Another gentleman 

 who shipped to Denyer with me received 

 for his very choice Riverside Navels, 



$8.22 per box of 137. It costs about $4.20 

 to pay freight and commission on a box 

 of Riverside lemons sold in Denver and 

 $3.50 on a tbox of oranges. The cost of 

 shipment to San Francisco and commis- 

 sion is 75 cents per box. This makes the 

 Denver market nearly $2 per box better 

 than San Francisco." 



FREIGHTS. The high freights of the 

 Southern Pacific railroad* have been the 

 chief impediment to eartern shipments. 

 Some concessions were made by this com- 

 pany during the past year, but the tariff 

 is still too high. It is to be hoped that the 

 advent of a competing railroad, wkich we 

 have in the Atlantic and Pacific,now estab- 

 lishing termini on this coast, will put 

 quite a different face on the matter; tha 

 we shall soon have cheap access to all 

 available Eastern markets. One thing is 

 certain: San Francisco cannot be relied 

 on to furnish an outlet for our vast citrus 

 productions, and [the sooner our people 

 establish their own commercial relations 

 with consuming markets the larger their 

 returns. 



AVOIDING THE TROUBLE OF PICKING, 

 PACKING AND SHIPPING. Of late years, 

 jobbing firms of wealth and experience 

 have come to the fore as purchasers of 

 our citrus fruits, and the most common 

 practice among producers is to sell their 

 crops on the trees. They are thus relieved 

 of all trouble and responsibility in the 

 premises, and realize more satisfactorily 

 than though they undertook the work 

 themselves. The jobbers, well versed in 

 the modus operandi of packing, shipping 

 and supplying the various markets, can 

 handle the fruit to much better advantage 

 than individual producers. 



*NOTE. The railroad company reduced the rate 

 on oranges last year (1884) to all points east of the 

 Missouri river from $350 to $250 per carload; to 

 Tucson and Benson, A. T., to $225 per carload; to 

 Kansas City $200 per carload. The through rates 

 two years ago were as high as $600 per car. The 

 difference in favor of orange growers is very large, 

 being over $1 per box. This traffic is only in its 

 inception. Each year it will increase, and with the 

 increase no doubt further reductions will occur. 



