"•yrh^T^'.li 
iSj^P^^i^TRY HO 
GETTING PRODUCE INTO NEW YORK. 
AN immp:nse and early business. 
Farmers are supposed to be tolerably familiar with 
the production of all farm crops, but the handling of 
some of them in our great markets would be a revela¬ 
tion to most country dwellers. It is 
miscellaneous assortment of goods which may include 
crates of berries, coops of live poultry, cases of eggs, 
pails of tobacco, and dozens of other things of various 
kinds. This sort of company may do for some goods, 
but it certainly is bad for the butter, for butter some¬ 
times is known by the company it keeps and the 
ered at the various piers, of which all the principal 
railroads have one or more on the East and North 
Rivers. To do this, the freight cars are run directly 
upon floats like that shown in Fig. 155. These floats 
usually carry 10 to 12 freight cars each, in two lines, 
with an elevated and covered passageway between on 
a level with the car floors. These 
popularly supposed, too, that they are 
familiar with their preparation for mar¬ 
ket, but an inspection of many of the ^ 
products sent to our great markets will sm 
tend to dispel that illusion. The hand- Hk 
ling of agricultural products in a market mljm 
like New York, is a task of immense 
proportions. Not only does the city it- mm 
self, and the towns contiguous to and ||Hi 
dependent upon it for supplies, consume 
immense quantities of food products, 
but this city is also a great distributing .jffl 
center, sending the products here mar- Mm 
keted hundreds of miles into the sur- ||M|| 
rounding territory. As an illustration 
of the great quantities consumed, it is Mm 
said that considerably upwards of 20,000 Klfl 
barrels of flour are used daily for con- j StHf ii 
sumption in this city. When we bear in , ■/|D|| 
mind that corresponding quantities of all [/ 
other products from far and near are IlMmUmP 
consumed, the magnitude of the business 
of transporting these products begins to 
dawn upon us. 
New York is situated upon an island, 
the New York Central Railroad being 
the only one that has direct access into 
the city. Products coming over all other 
roads must come by ferry. Take the 
grain that is shipped from the West. 
Near all the great railroad termini are 
immense gram elevators ; the loaded cars ' Mr 
are here emptied, and the grain is ele¬ 
vated to be run into steamboats or on 
other craft which take it to other parts 
of the world. Then there are the great 
floating elevators which take the loads of grain, and 
discharge them into the steamboats lying at their 
docks or to any other desired points. Most of the 
live stock coming from the West is unloaded at the 
great live stock yards at 
Jertey City or on the New 
York side in the neighbor¬ 
hood of West 59th Street. 
Near these are the slaugh- 
ter houses where these i ||S *** 
animals are speedily con- Jl i 
verted into roasts, chops, ™I|l 
stews and fries. From these H 
yards, too, the cattle which I 
are exported, are taken on ij j||amih|. 
transfer boats and carried U I! 
to the ocean steamers. | H 
Large quantities of prod- f| I 
uce in these days come by j mm | 
express, perishable prod- | | " 
ucts especially. The ex- 
press companies deliver ' 
these directly to the con- 
signees, but the latter are 
obliged to do their own 
carting when goods are 
sent by freight. The im¬ 
mense express vans which 
carry great loads as high as a load of hay. 
floats are towed by little steam tugs 
which handle them with great ease, and 
are run to the various warehouses where 
' they are to be unloaded. Fig. 154 shows 
an end view of one of these with the 
longshoremen and their trucks busily 
loading and unloading these cars with 
merchandise. This is all done by men 
, with these hand trucks, and a gang of 
men will unload a car in a short time. 
% The yarious consignees receive their 
jar goods from these freight wai ehouses on 
M the pier. Last spring the Pennsylvania 
'M I railroad tried to force the delivery of 
w|l Southern vegetables in their freight 
I yards at Jersey City instead of at their 
various piers on the North river. There 
ijm ik was a strong flght against this, because 
it entailed considerable extra expense 
|W|m\ to the receivers as well as considerable 
delay, and the receivers finally won, so 
that now produce is delivered as form- 
erly. Many times, in the watermelon 
HwBaraA,., season, the longest piers will be literally 
covered from end to end with water- 
melons. 
In the fruit season, a good many 
peaches and other fruits are delivered 
< across the river, and the wagons go di- 
rectly to the freight yards for their 
loads. The farmers think they are early 
risers, but they know nothing about 
^ getting up in the morning compared 
with these men and the commission 
dealers. Long before midnight, the 
wagons are on their way over for their 
loads, and many a store is open for business by one or 
two o’clock in the morning, the bulk of the business 
being done by the time the ordinary farmer has his 
breakfast. It is said of one man, the buyer for one of 
the city’s largest restau¬ 
rants, that in 25 years he 
never missed a single morn¬ 
ing in which he was not in 
the market by three o’clock 
The R. N.-Y. has several 
described the meth- 
ods of selling fruits at auc- 
_ _ _ tion. It has also told how 
M'/l goods are sold on the Mer- 
' ] cantile Exchange, and 
prices fixed from which 
!• market quotations are 
jr ' || I , made. There is a large 
^ II' classof miscellaneous 
(L- products which are not 
handled on the exchanges, 
' and the prices of these are 
regulated directly by the 
supply and demand, and 
indirectly by various other 
factors. The commission 
merchant keeps posted so 
far as possible as to the 
large lots of produce likely to come on the market. 
Loading and Unloading Cabs on a Float. Fig. 154. 
flavors it has absorbed. Here comes in the advantage 
of shipping in large lots. Nowadays creameries ship 
their butter in car-load lots in refrigerator cars. But¬ 
ter is either transferred to cold storage houses on ar- 
A Tbain Load of Truck Afloat. Fig. 155, 
rattle riving here, or to store refrigerators early in the day, 
around over the streets distributing goods of every 
description. For instance, the farmer delivers to his 
expressman a tub of butter consigned to his commis¬ 
sion merchant. It comes thro'ugh to the city on the 
express car in which it is taken, in company with a 
so that it is. just as hard on arriving at its destination 
as when it started on its journey. This is the only 
true way to ship butter. 
Of the miscellaneous products that come from differ¬ 
ent parts of the country, large quantities are deliy* 
When he comes to business in the morning, or, more 
properly, in the middle of the night, he looks around 
on the piers and tries to ascertain the supply. If it is 
short, he shoves up prices ; if the reverse, an effort is 
made to maintain them or, at least, to drop them no 
