174 COOPERATIVE MARKETING 



movement of cars belonging to non-exchange shippers. The 

 marketing operations and the information collected by the 

 agents are classified and unified each day at the division 

 headquarters, and reports of everything that has happened, 

 together with the outlook, are wired daily to the Los An- 

 geles office. For handling its elaborate information service 

 the Exchange has its own cipher code, and its expense for 

 telegrams runs into thousands of dollars a month. 



The other part of the marketing system which is located 

 chiefly outside of California is the traffic department. This 

 department, with headquarters in Los Angeles, maintains 

 a staff of inspectors along the through railroad lines and 

 through these inspectors watches every car of fruit from 

 the original shipping point to the final destination. The 

 department assists in the routing of cars so as to allow 

 a shipper to lay down his commodity in a given market in 

 the very shortest time, and it also handles diversions. Its 

 inspectors see to it that cars are not delayed by sidetracking, 

 that the ventilation or icing is done by the carriers accord- 

 ing to specifications, and that shifted loads are rearranged. 

 Fruit that shows signs of decay is also noted by the in- 

 spectors. Like the agents, the inspectors report daily to 

 the Los Angeles office, showing, besides the condition of 

 the fruit, the day and hour of arrival and departure of 

 every car. Hence the exact location of each car is always 

 known by those interested. 



Since the traffic department has specific and complete 

 data from its own agents, it knows the fact as soon as a 

 car has been mishandled in any manner. Claims for dam- 

 ages against the carriers are a part of the department's 

 duties, and the marked success which it has achieved in 

 collecting claims is attributable to this elaborate system of 

 inspections. The railroads now realize that the only way 

 of escaping the payment of damages is to render a service 



