PROCEEDINGS OF THIRTY-SIXTH FRUIT-GROWERS ' CONVENTION. 19 



tin- music of experience, and discussion, and endeavor, to promote by 

 everv means the best fruits, the best markets, and the best of every- 

 thing that may advance the resources of the best State of all of Uncle 

 Sam's great domain. Again I thank you. (Applause.) 



MR. BERWICK. I would like to employ a few minutes now. if the 

 convention would be pleased to hear me. as my time here is very limited. 



PRESIDENT JEFFREY. We will be pleased to hear from you 

 Mr. Berwick. You are an honored member of this convention and have 

 been for years. (Applause.) 



MR. BERWICK. Governor Gillett, Mr. President, Mr. Porter, and 

 (,< nth mat of Hie Convention: I am sure you are all pleased and unite 

 with me in thanking the Watsonville people, including Lieutenant Gov- 

 ernor Porter, for their kindly reception here this morning. I know, 

 also, you will concur with me in thanking Governor Gillett for his good 

 suggestions made to us this morning, and also Mr. Jeffrey. I want to 

 remark on one thing Governor Gillett has said, that the Panama Canal 

 is one great hope of the fruit growers. You may recall that for many 

 years I had the honor of being chairman of your canal committee. In 

 fact, I believe I was all sorts of a crank— among others, a canal crank. 

 I am glad now to be officially justified, and to know that the canal is 

 largely the hope of California. I am glad to hear, through Mr. Jef- 

 frey, that this convention as a whole is not here to discuss small ques- 

 tions, but economics is one of the great things we are here to talk over. 

 I have been talking over economics on behalf of you fruit growers for a 

 good many years. You may recall, in Los Angeles, about five and a 

 half years ago, you growers kindly put me at the head of what we call 

 the Postal Progress League of California. It was one important effort 

 toward solving the transportation problem. You know other countries 

 have a very efficient postal service that carries parcels of all kinds of 

 things through the mails and assists very much in distributing large 

 quantities of produce. A man from Japan the other day told me : "In 

 Japan I had butter sent 700 miles at a charge of 25 cents for a ten- 

 pound package." A lady told me about two days ago: "I was living 

 in England, a little way from London. I had oysters sent me through 

 the mail." You can have all sorts of things sent by mail there and dis- 

 tributed very economically to consumers. One of your great problems 

 is economic distribution, to get as directly as possible to those who con- 

 sume your products. The parcels post is one of these agencies. In 

 England one house of seedsmen sent out 70.000 packages in two days. 

 You can see the extent to which they avail themselves there of parcels 

 post. If you are a farmer you can have the mail cart stop at your gate, 

 on your giving due notice, and take your products from your gate to 

 distribute all over England, at very low rates. Germany has the same 

 agency ; even Japan has the same agency. 



For five and one half years, as some of you know, I have been working 

 to influence politics here that we may have congress give us the same 

 agency. It depends entirely on congress. The President has no power, 

 the Postmaster General has no power to alter the rates, but congress 

 has. But, as you know, gentlemen, unfortunately the machine largely 

 dominates politics and the transportation companies largely dominate 

 the machine. There is one way of getting this thing, and one only, 



