CAR-LOT SHIPMENTS OP FRUITS AND VEGETABLES. 3 



A different form of postal card was sent to the agents of boat lines. 

 Upon these forms unload reports were secured which also stated the 

 points of loading, with the quantity of each commodity forwarded 

 from each point. The quantity was usually expressed in packages 

 or pounds and was reduced in this Bureau to equivalent carloads. 



There were received during 1916 reports of the shipment of 634,175 

 carloads, originating or billed at 8,798 railroad stations and steam- 

 boat wharves. 



The purpose of this bulletin is to present in tabulated form the 

 information which has thus been gathered. It is designed to give 

 shipping information only. It does not purport to give all the points 

 or areas of production or to represent their relative importance. For 

 example, Baltimore, Md., is reported as having shipped 237 carloads 

 of sweet potatoes and 2,1 70 carloads of white potatoes. It is known, 

 however, that but few of these are grown in the immediate vicinity of 

 that city. A large number are hauled in from Anne Arundel County 

 in trucks, wagons, and small boats. These are sold to dealers, who 

 ship them out to other points. For a similar reason the importance 

 as a producing area of that part of New Jersey near Philadelphia is 

 not fairly represented by the figures showing the shipments from the 

 stations within that territory. Since Philadelphia consumes large 

 quantities of fruits and vegetables, the importance of the adjacent 

 producing areas is not indicated even by the shipments from that 

 city. Similar conditions exist around many other cities and towns. 

 Canneries and drying plants located in producing sections also 

 increase the difficulty of gauging the total production of a section 

 by the shipments reported. 



The methods by which most railroads keep their records make it 

 impracticable to distinguish between cars actually loaded at a given 

 point and cars reshipped from that point; therefore, if our reports 

 were complete the total carload shipments would exceed the surplus 

 production of those States which contain numerous storage and dis- 

 tributing points from which large quantities of fruits and vegetables 

 are reshipped. The shipments from a number of seaports include 

 many cars which were imported. While there are a few commodi- 

 ties, such as bananas, which are not grown in this country, there are 

 many others, such as oranges, lemons, and onions, which are of 

 both foreign and domestic origin. As to the latter, it is impossible 

 to determine how many are of domestic origin and therefore already 

 covered by reports from the stations where grown. There is much 

 duplication of this sort in this bulletin, and the reader must not 

 assume that all the shipments credited to large cities and to certain 

 important railroad junctions were of crops actually grown at those 

 points. 



