PROCEEDINGS OF THIRTY-THIRD FRUIT-GROWERS ' CONVENTION. 91 



good attention in that respect, they will not deteriorate as much with this 

 extreme length of time in transit as they otherwise would ; but any 

 one who is at all familiar with the subject will acknowledge that grapes 

 put on cold storage at home without the incident of transportation 

 would deteriorate greatly at the end of a period of sixteen days, to say 

 nothing of adding the time for the exposing and sale to the consumer of 

 the product beyond that time. 



The energies of growers, shippers, and this Convention should be 

 bent in the direction of using all possible persuasion, arguments, facts, 

 and figures with all transportation companies interested to get them to 

 give us and maintain a schedule of seven days to Chicago and common 

 points and nine days to New York. I believe that such a schedule that 

 can be counted upon and maintained will do more to widen the dis- 

 tribution of California deciduous fruits than any other line of endeavor 

 that can be undertaken at the present time. 



Sacramento, December 2, 1907. 



MR. STEPHENS. I wish to say that in keeping with the statements 

 there I have the official reports here. I will read just a few r . Here is a 

 car that was shipped to Philadelphia; was out 21 days. Car to Boston, 

 25 days. Another car to Boston, 22 days. Car to New York, 22 days. 

 One shipped to Chicago, 16 days. Another one to Chicago, 17 days. 

 Another one to Chicago, 19 days. Another one to New York, 21 days. 

 New York again, 21 days. New York, 19 days. New York, 20 days. I 

 only make this statement to show you that the statements made therein, 

 both in Mr. Anderson's report and in the Transportation Committee's 

 report, are verified by facts. I think Mr. Anderson is a little in error about 

 the average time; I think the average time is longer than that which was 

 given. But I am very glad to be able to state to you that, for the first 

 time, I think, in the history of fruit-growers' conventions, Mr. Anderson 

 and myself are in sentiment agreed that we believe the most important 

 thing to be taken up and considered is the transportation question; 

 that transportation is the question more important than all others com- 

 bined having bearing upon the horticultural interests of this State. 

 Now, the officials of the different transportation companies should take 

 notice of these two reports and go at the question with a determination 

 to give us better time, as the Southern Pacific Traffic Manager, Mr. 

 Sproule, did, in 1901, and put that into force — make out a time-schedule 

 you can depend upon, so that a shipper will not ship five cars to New 

 York to-day and five to-morrow and five the next day and have them 

 all arrive there the same day. To illustrate: we had a car shipped at 

 a certain date; we had another car shipped on the same date. Some- 

 thing happened to that car so it had to be transferred. It was about 

 three days later, and the time made on both of them was very bad. 

 They both went to Pittsburg. One was 18 days and the other 23 days 



