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pay these expenses and keep paying you the prices that he is paying ? I 

 have seen a statement made in print lately that California grapes have 

 been selling in the East at $200 a ton. Now, I have a statement of the 

 very highest price that grapes sold for, and that is nothing of the kind. It 

 has also been stated that the railroad charges $30. The truth is that the 

 railroad charges $75 a ton, and I stake my reputation on the assertion and 

 challenge any one to dispute it, that to average all the fruit sent East this 

 year the shipper has not realized $10 a ton for his fruit, net. Now, shall 

 we allow ourselves to be fooled by parties who come in here and tell us we 

 are getting rich? 



Mr. Hatch: I desire to mention that grapes sold for $200 a ton referred 

 to the retail rates. 



Mr. Block: I have been a shipper of grapes, and have received some of 

 the highest prices and some of the lowest; and I tell you that I hardly 

 realized a cent out of grapes, and they were as fine as any we have had. 

 People are employed to give us information. We are tickled; we are 

 pleased to hear that we are doing well; that we are growing rich; we laugh 

 to hear it; but when we come home to pay our taxes, and to pay our help, 

 we sometimes have to hunt around to see where we can get the wherewith 

 to do it. I have shown you that the railroad company is getting $246 to 

 your $100, and I could show you more, only I don't want to go so far into 

 detail. For years I am taxed to pay the railroad debt upon $300,000 that 

 my county has donated the railroad, and we have to pay every year the 

 interest and a part of a sinking fund towards it, and in the State we do 

 the same thing. Now, gentleman, I suggest that a committee be appointed 

 by this body to investigate the matter that I have stated here ; to go to the 

 California Fruit Union and tell them to give you exact returns as soon as 

 they can make them out, of the fruit shipped; to investigate this state- 

 ment, and ask the Board of Trade in every city in the State to cooperate 

 with you and compel the railroad to meet us and give us a living rate; we 

 are all interested; in the whole community there is not a member that is 

 not interested with us in our work. 



Mr. W. H. Aiken, of Wrights: To bring this matter in its proper form 

 before this body, I move that a committee of five be appointed by the 

 Chair, to act in connection with a like committee to be appointed by the 

 Fruit Union, to wait upon the railroad authorities and obtain better rates 

 for eastern shipping. Such committee to report to the annual meeting of 

 the Fruit Union and also to the spring session of this convention the results 

 of their effort. 



Mr. Block: I second the motion; however, the State Board of Trade is 

 doing a great work, and I will amend by asking their cooperation and that 

 of every Chamber of Commerce in this State. 



Mr. Aiken: I will accept that, for the committee to cooperate with com- 

 mittees appointed from any other body. 



General Chipman: Mr. Block has left rather an alarming impression 

 of the nature of the profitableness of fruit shipping. Now I took a little 

 trouble to try to see the effect of the figures that he has, but did not perhaps 

 have time to discover the ultimate result of his figures, but I want to call 

 the attention of the convention to this fact that I mentioned in my paper 

 last night, that the results of these shipments of the Fruit Union are now 

 known. The table I presented is not challenged, gives all the items of cost, 

 and you can take the net weight of the fruit, some eleven million of pounds, 

 and with that you can find the exact cost per pound of every item that 

 enters into it and find out whether Mr. Block is correct. From that table 

 you get ultimately the result I stated, that is net to the grower from the 



