DEMURRAGE INFORMATION FOR FARMERS. 
15 
has to purchase them. An indirect and remote advantage accrues 
when ho is selling on commission such of them as grain, hay, or 
potatoes. Tho agricultural products on which additional time is 
allowed in Florida are cabbage, cottonseed, .cottonseed hulls, ferti- 
lizer material, potatoes, and seed cotton. Minnesota grants addi- 
tional time on fruit and vegetables. South Carolina provides more 
fiberally for agriculture by granting additional time on bran, cotton- 
seed, cottonseed hulls, cottonseed meal, fertilizers, fertilizer material, 
grain, hay, meal, mill feed, bulk apples, and bulk potatoes. 
Additional time is allowed in some States to consignees located a 
certain distance from the station. In Alabama from 4 to 6 days are 
allowed for distances of 3 miles or more. In Arkansas a maximum 
of 5 days is allowed for 5 miles and over. Mississippi allows 5 days 
for distances of from 3 to 10 miles and 7 days for distances over 10 
miles. Oklahoma allows 72 hours for distances greater than 5 miles. 
South Carolina allows more time for distances greater than 4 miles. 
Texas allows 96 hours for distances greater than 5 miles. 
As a matter of practical business there is little justification for 
allowing additional time on certain excepted commodities. So far as 
the labor of loading and unloading is concerned, a carload of any of 
the special commodities mentioned above can easily be loaded or 
unloaded in the 48 hours allowed on other commodities. A sliding 
scale of time varying with the quantity of the carload is more reason- 
able, but in both cases the real reason, for shippers wanting more 
time usually has no connection with the actual time necessary to load 
or unload a car. Usually it springs from a desire to shift elsewhere 
an item of expense that should properly be borne by the shipper's 
business. 
At first glance the regulations of those States that base the length 
of time on the distance from the station would seem to be the most 
logical. A close examination, however, reveals the fact that none 
of them applies the principle consistently in detail. Texas, for in- 
stance, allows 96 hours for distances greater than 5 miles. If 96 
hours is a reasonable period of time to allow for loading or unloading 
a car when the shipper is located 6 miles from the station, it is cer- 
tainly not reasonable for a shipper located at a distance of 16 miles 
or 20 miles. 
Instead of asking for long periods of "free time" in which to load 
and unload their carload shipments, and then using all of it merely 
because it is "free," it would be a distinct economic gain and an 
advantage to all shippers if the farmers would insist on some of the 
present periods being shortened and would use every effort to reduce 
car detention to the actual time needed for loading or unloading a 
car. Cooperative associations could solve the problem for those who 
live long distances from the railroad by erecting warehouses at a 
