1334 



ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PRACTICAL HORTICULTURE 



made for Indianapolis, It reaches that 

 city early Friday morning, about the time 

 it would have reached Chicago had there 

 been no diversion. 



Distributing" a Car Lot 



Cities and tov^ns -which do not require a 

 full carload of a given product are often 

 supplied from neighboring car-lot mar- 

 kets. Small lots of perishable goods may 

 be forwarded in refrigerator cars devoted 

 to local service. For small consignments 

 of fruit and vegetables intended for 

 neighboring towns refrigerator cars are 

 run on regular schedules from Chicago 

 and other large cities, and each car is 

 assigned its own route. The service on 

 one railroad will illustrate this traffic. 

 This railroad sends out from Chicago, 

 every night except Sunday night, 11 trains 

 hauling such cars. One of these trains, 

 leaving Chicago at 9:45 p. m., takes cars 

 for 14 different routes; three of these 

 cars are run only two days of each week, 

 five of the cars are run on three days 

 of the week, and six cars are run on 

 six days. A car may be transferred from 

 one train to another, making one, two, 

 or more transfers before it reaches its 

 destination. From this train cars are 

 transferred at various points in Iowa; one 

 car is taken off at Cedar Rapids, another 

 at Marshalltown, still another at Ames, a 

 fourth at Tama, while at Eagle Grove 

 three cars are taken off and given to 

 three different trains. At Belle Plaine two 

 more trains are each given a car, and at 

 Mason City another transfer of a car is 

 mau6. 



Interurban electric lines and steam- 

 boats help to distribute small lots of fresh 

 fruit and vegetables from car-lot markets. 

 In addition to the traffic on steam rail- 

 roads, large quantities of this kind of 

 produce are thus distributed from Cin- 

 cinnati by trolley lines and river boats, 

 while lake steamers assist in this work 

 at Chicago. 



Shipments of less-than-carload lots of 

 this highly perishable produce are apt to 



be more frequent in times of high prices. 

 Under some conditions less-than-carload 

 lots may be shipped all the way from 

 Chicago to St. Paul, or even to Omaha. 

 But, as has been said in the first part of 

 this article, the regular way of transport- 

 ing these fresh fruits and vegetables is by 

 carload lots, shipments in smaller quanti- 

 ties, except for short distances, being 

 chiefly to markets where a lai^ger quan- 

 tity could not be sold. 



Coiicliisioii 



The extension of better ways of distrib- 

 uting fresh fruits and vegetables among 

 the various markets and the improvement 

 in transportation service have done much 

 to reduce the waste in marketing, but 

 there is still room for improvement. 

 Sometimes a crop in a given region will 

 be too large to be marketed promptly. 

 There may be too few cars to carry the 

 produce, and it spoils while awaiting ship- 

 ment; or it may be loaded in cars and 

 started on its way, but the increased num- 

 ber of cars may be more than the rail- 

 road can handle promptly, and a conges- 

 tion of traffic may cause a delay of sev- 

 eral days on the way. Or, even with 

 quick and adequate freight sexwice, the 

 produce may yet fail to be well marketed. 

 It is not always practicable for shippers 

 to determine beforehand the approximate 

 supply which a given city or town is 

 about to receive, or to judge how much 

 can be sold there at fair prices, and an 

 error in the shippei'S' judgment may re- 

 sult in glutting a market. 



But in spite of occasional losses due 

 to car shortages, freight blockades, and 

 overstocked markets it is a widespread 

 opinion among shippers that there are 

 fewer losses on fresh fruits and vegetables 

 now than there were 10 or 15 years ago; 

 and the tendency of the present time is 

 to reduce still further the waste in mar- 



JtV tri! u X Xx ^ • 



Year-book, 1911. 



Marketing Cantaloupes. See under 

 Cantaloup Culture, 



