SHIPMENTS AND DISTRIBUTION OF TOMATOES. 6 
In the summer of 1914 inquiries were addressed by the Office of 
Markets and Rural Organization to station agents at all points from 
which there was any reason to believe that tomatoes were shipped in 
full carloads, and to every cooperative association handling the crop 
of which the department had any knowledge, asking for a record of 
the car-lot shipments in 1913 and an estimate of the shipments to be 
made in 1914. A growers' list was compiled with the object of 
obtaining reliable information on every phase of tomato marketing. 
After the shipping season of 1914 was ended the inquiry was renewed 
and has been followed up both by addressing local station agents and 
general railroad officials, until this office has definite reports on the 
shipments during 1914 from 330 shipping points at which tomatoes 
originate in car lots, and a statement from the transportation or 
shipping agencies as to the number of carloads shipped from each in 
that year. 
DETAILED REPORT OF SHIPMENTS. 
The tabulated statement placed at the conclusion of this bulletin 
shows the tomato shipping stations and the reported number of 
cars shipped from each during the 1914 season. No attempt has 
been made to list stations where no full cars originated. Yet at 
those stations where full cars did originate, the less than car-lot ship- 
ments have been ascertained, and have been reduced to equivalent 
carloads, and these are included in the tables here shown. The 
number of carloads shipped from many points varies greatly from 
year to year, due to seasonal variation and to the fact that the 
tomato crop, if unprofitable in any one section in any one year, is 
likely to be much reduced the next. For this reason the figures 
given for 1914 may be either much above or much below the average 
shipments, and there are no authentic figures for preceding years for 
comparison. In some cases certain stations are credited with less 
than car-lot shipments. The fact is that these stations normally 
ship in full carloads, but, owing to a short crop or other abnormal 
conditions in 1914, they did not ship their usual quantities. These 
figures are classified by States, and to some extent by shipping 
districts. 
SHIPMENTS BY BOAT. 
There are a number of localities in which the situation as to tomato 
shipments is somewhat complicated. This is particularly true of the 
territory surrounding the lakes and bays where many of the ship- 
ments are made by boats to markets located comparatively near to the 
points of origin. There are many small boat lines that handle con- 
siderable quantities of this commodity, and it has been found almost 
impossible to secure complete and accurate records of all these 
shipments. For instance, the region in the neighborhood of Benton 
