104 Fruit Farming for Profit in California, 



ments of 1891 : We shipped from California, in the 

 green-fruit form, three tliousand four hundred and 

 twenty carloads to the Atlantic States, Middle States, 

 "Western States, and the State of Colorado. Of this 

 total shipment, two thousand eight hundred and ninety- 

 three cars were sent forward in July, August, Septem- 

 ber, and October, the four months covering the fruit 

 harvest period of the East, leaving but five hundred 

 and twenty- seven cars for the months of May, June, 

 November, and December. It is significant that we 

 shipped no fruit in the months of January, February, 

 March, and April, and but twenty-two cars in May ; the 

 first five months of the year, therefore, practically show 

 no shipment. Our shipment begins in June, and more - 

 than eighty j)er cent, of the entire shipment finds a 

 market at the East, in the face of the domestic fruit 

 production of those States. 



I have previously expressed the opinion that we 

 had not placed our fruit within the reach of five 

 millions of people. If this statement needs modifica- 

 tion, it is in the direction of a reduction of the number. 

 The early fruits reached the Eastern market at such 

 rates as to make them luxuries. I have personally 

 examined the market in the month of June, and found 

 cherries selling at two dollars and fifty cents per box 

 when thev were being; marketed in San Erancisco 

 at thirty-five cents per box. I have information to day 

 that California peaches are selling at seven cents a 

 peach in New York, at the retail stands. It is not 

 enough that our fruits are placed in the markets of 

 the East ; they must be placed there at such rates as 

 will enable the masses of people to consume them. 



