PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-STXTH FRUIT-GROWERS' CONVENTION. 19 



that, but cheap transportation and an easier ride for our fruit. You have 

 all been on freight trains. Sometimes it jars you, and jars our fruit, 

 too, before it is ready for the "jars." The steamboat does not do any- 

 thing of this sort. God's highway is a very smooth highway for fruit 

 to travel over. You put your fruit in the steamer on cold storage, and 

 it goes wherever you want it to go without a jar. The Nicaragua Canal 

 renders that thing possible. 



MR. ADAMS. I would like to call your attention to one matter that 

 no one has ever succeeded in getting the public on this Coast to take 

 hold of. I presume that you are all familiar with the fact that in the 

 coast- wise commerce (ships passing between one port and another in 

 the United States) none but American ships are allowed to engage. The 

 important thing for us to get is cheap rates through the canal between 

 our American ports — between the Pacific and the Atlantic. Home 

 markets are the best markets we have. This market of California and 

 the Pacific Coast is worth more to the people of the Atlantic Coast than 

 any other market they can get. W.hat we ought to have is reduced 

 rates on coast-wise commerce. As yet the people have never got hold of 

 that part of the question. Carefully reading the text of the treaty 

 leaves me in doubt whether, under the treaty, there can be any rebate 

 on the coast-wise trade as it now stands. 



MR. BERWICK. I supposed there was none. If this was extended 

 to the East, we could ship East and the East could ship to us at the 

 reduced rates. This is a matter of the most importance to the fruit 

 business. It is to the sailing ships that we may look for the greatest 

 reduction in freights and for better time. 



