TWENTY-NINTH FRUIT-GROWERS' CONVENTION. 



41 



MR. MARKLEY. I move that it be adopted and filed. 



MR. STEPHENS. Mr. Cliairman, I beg pardon; tliere is one thing 

 I forgot to mention and should mention, because it is made a part of 

 the report. Here is a copy of a statement which took the typesetter 

 three weeks to set up and which required a great many more weeks to 

 figure out. It is almost an absolutely correct record of every car of 

 fruit shipped out of the State of California between the 23d day of June 

 and the 30th day of October. It is also a correct report, as given by 

 the California Distributors, of the sale of every car that was shipped 

 between those dates and sold up to November 13th. I desire to call 

 your particular attention to a tabulated statement there, with the 

 double mark in the center, showing the number of cars shipped between 

 those dates, the number of cars reported sold, and the number of cars 

 that were lost in some way. There are unaccounted for 3,110 carloads 

 of fruit that were sent out of this State between those dates. I desire 

 to call your attention particularly to that, because it is significant; it 

 shows more than could be said in a volume of a thousand pages, from 

 the standpoint of the business man. The question is, what became of 

 these 3,110 carloads ? Some may be accounted for by shipments made 

 b}^ persons who ship outside of the Distributors, but, comparatively 

 speaking, the number of cars was very small indeed as compared with 

 the whole number of cars shipped. Now, this statement gives the fruit 

 sales in every auction city on the Atlantic side, by weeks, so that by 

 perusing it you can see what period there appeared to be good sales and 

 the period at which there were poor sales. The compilations were 

 made in that manner for the purpose just mentioned, and also to avoid 

 errors in additions, and so forth. You will find that these columns 

 will balance. Another thing regarding this statement is that the freight, 

 the refrigeration, the cost of production, etc., are shown separately, 

 interest not included. The profit or loss, as the case may be, is shown 

 up to that time. Then afterwards the interest upon the investment, 

 and the necessary amount required to bring the orchard or vineyard 

 into bearing, are taken into consideration and added to the loss or 

 subtracted from the profit, whichever it is, and then it gives you the 

 result, showing whether the fruit was marketed at a profit or not, 

 including interest. I make these explanations so that you can under- 

 stand this better. 



MR. BERWICK. Mr. Stephens, were those 3,110 cars unaccounted 

 for sold at private sale? 



MR. STEPHENS. You must guess at that. I intend to discuss the 

 question after awhile, and possibly I may throw some light upon it. 



PRESIDENT COOPER. Now, there is a motion to accept the report 

 as read, previous to the statistical report. I wish to ask the mover 

 whether he wishes to include the report and also the statistics. 



