1330 



ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PRACTICAL HORTICULTURE 



for icing and for transferring the cars 

 from one road to another. From Miami, 

 Fla., to New York the time is approxi- 

 mately 96 hours, and from Miami to Chi- 

 cago about 108 hours. It is thus possible 

 for fruit and vegetables grown in regions 

 as far away as Southern Florida to be 

 delivered to consumers in Chicago or 

 New York within five or six days from 

 the time of gathering. 



Regularity of Seryice 



While these fruit and vegetable trains, 

 as any others, may be late sometimes, 

 nevertheless their regularity is such that 

 transactions are reported to be made oft- 

 en, if not usually, with the expectation 

 that the produce involved will be deliv- 

 ered at about a certain time on a certain 

 day. For instance, a car of vegetables 

 from a South Atlantic shipping point may 

 be bought by a dealer, who expects the 

 car to reach Jersey City on a Friday night 

 in time to be ferried across North river 

 to a wholesale market in New York, 

 which opens at 1 a. m. Should this car 

 be delayed several hours the vegetables 

 would miss the Saturday morning market 

 and might be delayed two days in reach- 

 ing the retail merchants. 



Two instances of delays will serve as 

 illustrations. A merchant in Philadel- 

 phia mentioned a consignment of straw- 

 berries which reached that city from 

 Florida six days late, and a Chicago deal- 

 er complained, about the same time, of 

 losing $500 on a car of strawberries that 

 reached him too late to take advantage of 

 a good market. Delays like these, it is 

 believed, are by no means as frequent 

 under present conditions of freight serv- 

 ice as in earlier times. 



Extension of Demand and Supply 

 Number of Markets 



Inquiries were made by the Bureau of 

 Statistics of this department in August, 

 1911, as to the different kinds of highly 

 perishable fruits and vegetables which 

 were received in car lots for local use 

 in cities having a population of not less 

 than 25,000. Of the 103 cities for which 

 reports were made, peaches were sold by 

 the carload in at least 87 j watermelons, 



in 86; cantaloupes, 77; bananas, 72; 

 strawberries, 71; tomatoes, 66; oranges, 

 65; grapes, 53; lemons, 39; pears, 32; 

 pineapples, 28; plums, 24; celery, 18; 

 cherries, 13; cucumbers, 11; green beans, 

 11; apricots, 11; and each of about 25 

 other commodities of this class were re- 

 ported to have car-lot markets in from 

 1 to 10 different cities. The reports on 

 which these figures are based are probably 

 incomplete to a greater or less degree; 

 some products are no doubt omitted which 

 should have been included. If it had 

 been possible to secure complete lists 

 of all such products for each of these 

 cities, the figures just given would prob- 

 ably have been larger. As they stand, 

 these incomplete figures show a wide 

 range of markets where car-lot shipments 

 of fresh fruits and vegetables may be 

 sold. The producer has many good out- 

 lets for his crops; if market conditions 

 in one place are not satisfactory, there 

 may be other places where fair prices 

 may be obtained. The cities which ab- 

 sorb these products by the carload in- 

 clude many whose population is less than 

 50,000. Of the 87 car-lot markets for 

 peaches in which returns were made in 

 this investigation, 30 were cities of less 

 than 50,000 inhabitants; 23 of these 

 smaller cities took cantaloupes by the 

 carload, 19 received grapes and straw- 

 berries, and 17 received tomatoes. Other 

 products of this class also found sale in 

 car lots among these smaller cities. 



The number of car-lot markets for 

 fruits and vegetables has increased great- 

 ly during the past decade. This is in- 

 dicated by reports made by railroad 

 freight agents and produce dealers in 

 various cities as to the year in which 

 the first carloads of certain products 

 were received for local use. The products 

 for which the fullest reports were made 

 were peaches, strawberries, cantaloupes, 

 tomatoes, and grapes. Of the 42 mar- 

 kets which reported the year when the 

 first carload of peaches was received for 

 local use, 13 had become car-lot mar- 

 kets within the past decade; the mar- 

 kets whose first carload sale of straw- 

 berries was made since 1900 numbered 



