196 PROCEEDINGS OF THIRTY-SIXTH FRUIT-GROWERS CONVENTION. 



comes in contact with the actual problems of life he will have the 

 equipment and training necessary to become a leader. 



We might continue to add to this list, but this will suffice to show the 

 responsibilities the University Farm has undertaken. Whether it will 

 prove a success or not rests largely with the ones who patronize it and 

 the support of the people of the State. We believe that the University 

 Farm has a great opportunity before it. and we hope that it will 

 get your heart}" cooperation and that the agricultural education of 

 California may be brought up to the standard to which it deserves. 

 (Applause.) 



PRESIDENT JEFFREY. I would like to call attention to one par- 

 ticular part of Mr. Brown's address for you to consider, that is, the 

 reference to the economical part of it. When I was over at the Uni- 

 versity Farm a few weeks ago talking to these same boys, of which 

 Mr. Volck is a sample of what they turn out from the higher depart- 

 ment of the University agricultural school. I asked those boys if they 

 knew how far the Southern Pacific Railroad Company had to lift a 

 car load of peaches to get it to market. I didn't expect them to answer 

 it ; there isn 't a man in the house can answer it, but the boys had never 

 thought of that question. In taking a car load of sugar from New 

 Orleans to Chicago they have to lift it 200 or 300 feet. In taking a 

 car load of peaches from California to Chicago they have to lift it 7.3 

 miles straight up. Now, that is a matter of economics, and is very 

 important. Fifteen years ago the average freight train was hauling 

 only 143 tons of freight. To-day the same crew of men, so many brake- 

 men, conductor, engineer and fireman, are handling nearly 400 tons of 

 freight. The first proposition I named is in favor of the railroads. 

 They can't carry freight 2,300 miles and lift it 7.3 miles as cheaply as 

 they can carry it a few hundred miles and lift it 300 feet. On the 

 other hand, the railroad that is now able to carry 400 tons of freight 

 with the same crew of men that formerly could only carry 143 tons 

 should reduce their rates. That is in favor of the fruit grower. I 

 asked the boys of they knew that the producer of a perishable product 

 had to take all the risk of taking it to the market, whether he sold the 

 crop on his trees or whether he sold it on consignment or in what way. 

 The boys had no thought of that. It is a good thing for all of us to 

 think of. Now. what I object to in the University course at Davis and 

 also at the University, itself is, that they have no chair of agricultural 

 economics. They have an economic department there, and each one of 

 seven or eight professors there signs after his name. ''Professor of 

 Commerce." and the word "commerce" means to the average person 

 the mere handling and shipping and traffic in freights. You go to a 

 commercial school in any city in this State and you will see them doing 

 all their figuring and warehousing and banking and insurance and 

 brokerage, but they don't do any figuring in selling hay or peaches. 

 They teach the boys at the school what they call commercial subjects. 

 It is no more commercial than Mr. Judd's selling his apples. I have 

 talked this over with Professor Wickson. He agrees with me that the 

 University should have a chair of farm economics, and when you 

 people realize this you will get it. I think the University ought to give 

 it to you without any demand. Professor Wickson says it will come 

 when the farmers demand it. When you send your boys to be educated 



