io6 Fniit Farmmg for Profit in California, 



alone on tlie sale of our fruit is seven per cent., and 

 that of itself constitutes a market-seeking fund, wkicli 

 should incite distributors to tlie highest activity. The 

 present method of distribution is costly to the consumer, 

 and all high cost to the consumer means a small reward 

 to the producer. The higher the price paid by the 

 consumer, the less the producer will get. High prices 

 discourage consumption, and enforce the condition of 

 over-production. So far as relates to green fruit, the 

 commodity is exceedingly perishable. Commercially 

 considered, every cargo lost is charged to the suc- 

 cessful venture. Further examination into the 

 subject convinces me that much improvement has 

 been made, over the former years, in the way 

 of distribution. The more important intermediate 

 stations are supplied with carload lots. But the 

 general statement that the fruits are shipped in 

 carload lots to the large commercial centres for distri- 

 bution remains true. In the year 1891 we shipped to 

 the Atlantic States nine hundred and nine carloads of 

 fruit. There are but five places of consignment, as 

 follows : New York, five hundred and thirty cars ; 

 Boston, one hundred and twenty- one cars ; Philadelphia, 

 eleven cars ; Baltimore, one car, and Buffalo, one car. 

 Of these five cities, two receive one car each, and one, 

 a city of a million of inhabitants, receives eleven cars. 

 There is a growing market for fruit west of the Mis- 

 souri Eiver. As an illustration, of the shipments of 

 1891, Butte, Montana, received forty-eight cars, and 

 Denver, Colorado, one hundred and fifty cars. Can it 

 be said of an enterprise that it has reached its full 

 development, when a market is found in New York 



