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



MR. BUTTERS. That is very easily illustrated by Sacramento. I 

 know two or three bankers in Sacramento who have large ranches 

 between Marysville and Sacramento. These gentlemen have been in the 

 habit of heretofore taking a day off. They used to drive out twenty-five or 

 thirty miles on a hot day, and take all the forenoon to drive, and they 

 were gone a day and a half or two days. Now, after banking hours, they 

 jump on the electric cars and come out and transact their business and 

 go back again. When this system of railways is finished as we plan 

 it, you can take an electric car and go anywhere you please. You can't 

 realize how much the conditions will change. In sections of the East 

 where the boys have left and gone to the cities and the old folks live alone, 

 the electric roads have gone through and those farms have all come 

 back into prominence and the old values are being restored and, in 

 fact, more. 



MR. JUDD. The reason I asked the question was because I thought 

 that in your paper you did not sufficiently drive home the fact that 

 the salvation of California, all over the State, is in the getting and 

 maintaining of electric lines, because transportation is much cheaper 

 over electric than over other lines. We had that experience in 

 Watsonville. It was a godsend as long as it lasted. Well, they fell 

 in among thieves — I think that is what they call it — and they sold the 

 road to parties who are not congenial, and it is not running. 



MR. MILLS. Do you intend to reach out to the large market around 

 the bay, Mr. Butters? 



MR. BUTTERS. So far as our own personal, individual plans are 

 concerned, I can not perhaps talk quite as freely about that as I would 

 like to, but I can say this, that already there are two or three surveys 

 from Sacramento to Vallejo and other points on the bay — Tiburon and 

 Vallejo. The actual outcome of this whole business will be that an 

 electric line will be extended — in fact, I have reason to believe that had 

 not this money stringency come on work would have been commenced 

 on a line between Sacramento and Tiburon which would have enabled 

 the Northern Electric to make a traffic arrangement to put all its 

 traffic through as far as Tiburon, and reaching the bay it would have been 

 easy to get water transportation to San Jose or any other point. There 

 is no doubt that that is the ultimate outcome — that there will be a 

 trunk line from the northern part of California to San Francisco; that 

 it will run down the west side of the river; that the products will come 

 in from Woodland, Vacaville, Suisun, Napa, Petaluma, and that whole 

 country, and they will all feed the electric railway. Of course, we 

 have personally no such project as that, as we have got enough to do 

 in the Sacramento Valley. In fact, we have laid out a system here 

 covering several hundred miles and not covering the entire valley. We 

 have covered 360 miles and that is all in the Sacramento Valley north 

 of Sacramento. 



