46 TWENTY-NINTH FRUIT-GROWERS' CONVENTION. 



Porter Brothers Company, that their re])ates from the refrigerator car 

 lines were some $1,800,000, and that seems to be apropos to this 

 report. If it is possible that a thing of that kind can exist in this 

 country, where an individual that has charge of the business of a fruit 

 company can take a rake-off of over a million and a half on refrigera- 

 tion alone, there is something remarkably "rotten in Denmark." You 

 can readily see the point raised in that report. If we don't crush 

 this private car-line proposition it is simply going to crush us. But, 

 to take up the proposition of publicity. Let us have reports everv 

 month or two. Let us knoAv the freight rates on all fruit products on 

 the Great Northern lines, the Northern Pacific, the Canadian Pacific, 

 and all those lines. Let the public knoAv exactly what they are paying 

 when they ship. It is certain to my mind that the Eastern lines get a 

 great deal less than their pro rata for the distance they haul. Don't be 

 afraid to tell the public whether we are getting the worst of it as com- 

 pared with Washington and Oregon. Last year they were shipping 

 apples from Oregon by the O. R. & N. down to Denver and by the way 

 of Deming, clear back up to Phoenix, 4,280 miles, for a dollar rate — no, 

 the rate was 97^ cents; and for shipping apples from Watsonville to 

 the same point, 831 miles, the rate was $1.08-^. There is the difference. 

 Publicity, if anything, is what talks. Let the public know the exact 

 facts in regard to transportation rates, and it will shake the dry bones " 

 all over the country. 



MR. STEPHENS. Mr. Chairman, and gentlemen of the Convention: 

 I am speaking in advocacy of the adoption of the report of the 

 Committee on Transportation. I wish to say right here, in our local- 

 ity, and I presume it prevails in all localities, with the exception of 

 this, probably, Avhere you are making raisins out of the products of 

 your vines, that you can't go to a savings bank and borrow one dollar 

 upon your orchard and your vineyard property unless it is backed by 

 other property that would be sufficient to satisfy a deficiency judg- 

 ment. The savings banks' treasuries are teeming with hundreds of 

 thousands of dollars ready to be loaned, and the directors of the banks 

 are anxious to make loans upon good security, but orchard property and 

 vineyard property are not regarded as good security by them. If the 

 fruit-growing industry of California — particularly the growing of 

 deciduous fruits — were prosperous, would the banks and the capitalists 

 hesitate to loan their money on the property? By no means. There 

 may be some savings banks that will make these loans, but you can 

 not go into the city of Sacramento and borrow from the Sacramento 

 Savings Bank, which is the wealthiest one there, on these properties, 

 unless they are backed up by other property which would be regarded 

 as good security; with this one qualification, that the land upon which 

 your vines or your trees are growing can be utilized in some other 



