SHIPMENTS AND DISTRIBUTION OF TOMATOES. 3 



In the summer of 1914 inquiries were addressed by the Office of 

 Markets and Rural Organization to station agents at all points from 

 which there was any reason to believe that tomatoes were shipped in 

 full carloads, and to every cooperative association handling the crop 

 of which the department had any knowledge, asking for a record of 

 the car-lot shipments in 1913 and an estimate of the shipments to be 

 made in 1914. A growers' list was compiled with the object of 

 obtaining reliable information on every phase of tomato marketing. 

 After the shipping season of 1914 was ended the inquiry was renewed 

 and has been followed up both by addressing local station agents and 

 general railroad officials, until this office has definite reports on the 

 shipments during 1914 from 330 shipping points at which tomatoes 

 originate in car lots, and a statement from the transportation or 

 shipping agencies as to the number of carloads shipped from each in 

 that year. 



DETAILED REPORT OF SHIPMENTS. 



The tabulated statement placed at the conclusion of this bulletin 

 shows the tomato shipping stations and the reported number of 

 cars shipped from each during the 1914 season. No attempt has 

 been made to list stations where no full cars originated. Yet at 

 those stations where full cars did originate, the less than car-lot ship- 

 ments have been ascertained, and have been reduced to equivalent 

 carloads, and these are included in the tables here shown. The 

 number of carloads shipped from many points varies greatly from 

 year to year, due to seasonal variation and to the fact that the 

 tomato crop, if unprofitable in any one section in any one year, is 

 likely to be much reduced the next. For this reason the figures 

 given for 1914 may be either much above or much below the average 

 shipments, and there are no authentic figures for preceding years for 

 comparison. In some cases certain stations are credited with less 

 than car-lot shipments. The fact is that these stations normally 

 ship in full carloads, but, owing to a short crop or other abnormal 

 conditions in 1914, they did not ship their usual quantities. These 

 figures are classified by States, and to some extent by shipping 

 districts. 



SHIPMENTS BY BOAT. 



There are a number of localities in which the situation as to tomato 

 shipments is somewhat complicated. This is particularly true of the 

 territory surrounding the lakes and bays where many of the ship- 

 ments are made by boats to markets located comparatively near to the 

 points of origin. There are many small boat lines that handle con- 

 siderable quantities of this commodity, and it has been found almost 

 impossible to secure complete and accurate records of all these 

 shipments. For instance, the region in the neighborhood of Benton 



