FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 
175 
precarious condition for they fully realize 
the importance and the necessity of 
freight readjustment though they are not 
in a position to and cannot take action 
because they are hampered in every di¬ 
rection, either by the Interstate Commerce 
Commission or the Labor Board. Re¬ 
cently the Southern railroads willingly 
agreed to allow unlimited diversions or 
re-consignments, after they were con¬ 
vinced that this practice was not being 
unnecessarily used and that the service 
for same was figured in with the freight 
rates, and that the right to divert cars 
would reduce the claims filed against the 
carriers. But when the matter was sub¬ 
mitted to the Interstate Commerce Com¬ 
mission it was refused. 
The Labor Board in Washington has 
refused, and is refusing the transporta¬ 
tion companies the privilege to reduce la¬ 
bor on their respective lines. With the 
Labor Board dictating wages and the In¬ 
terstate Commerce Commission dictating 
rates, it leaves nothing for the officials of 
the transportation companies to do except 
try to survive the situation until such time 
as we growers and shippers will take hold 
of the situation with the view of having 
the Labor Board removed and bring the 
fact before the Interstate Commerce 
Commission that freight rates must nec¬ 
essarily be in proportion to the value of 
the commodities transported. About 50 
per cent of the gross sales of our fruit, 
boxes, paper, nails and labor have gone 
to the transportation people as freight 
during the past season. For the growers 
to produce fruit requiring from ten to 
twelve months to make and to invest in 
packing material, and then have 50 per 
cent of the gross sales deducted for a 
service of from six to ten days transpor¬ 
tation is nothing short of suicide for the 
industry and will bring conditions to such 
a point that transportation must neces¬ 
sarily be figured out in some other man¬ 
ner and on some other basis. 
It seems to me that the time schedule 
of these cars in transit is also important 
as the transportation companies are now 
taking from 50 to 100 per cent more time 
to transport the cars to destination than 
they did five years ago. The more or less 
dilapidated condition of the equipment 
and cars together with the extra time for 
movement to destination, has caused the 
growers an almost inestimable loss, not 
only on specific shipments, but by poison¬ 
ing the minds of the receivers to the ex¬ 
tent that they fear Florida citrus fruits 
are weakening to such an extent that the 
elementary risk is more than they are 
willing to take, without an excessive al¬ 
lowance in this direction. 
We must have more cars that are bet¬ 
ter equipped for the protection of the 
fruit in transportation, both during warm 
and cold weather. Our present refriger¬ 
ator cars are inadequate to move the bulk 
of fruit and are in a very bad physical 
condition and are not protecting the fruit 
as they should; neither are they holding 
or maintaining ice as outlined and plan¬ 
ned by the refrigerating engineers. Sta¬ 
tistics show that there is entirely too much 
difference in temperature between the 
first and second tiers of fruit. A car 
fully iced will refrigerate the contents un¬ 
til the ice has melted away one-third and 
