SEVENTH ANNUAL MEETING OF THE 
favor. Not having any experience in shipping in this man¬ 
ner, I am unable to say how the venture turned out, but from 
the reports of several gentlemen and the conversations 1 have 
had with them, I think they have been mainly successful. 
This mode of shipping, saving as it does, the great expense of 
boxes, paper, wrapping and picking, is destined to grow in 
favor with the shippers. 
• During the early part of the season, shipments of oranges 
to England largely increased over other seasons. Mr. Ives, 
the general manager ol the Florida Fruit Exchange, informs 
me that the shipments sent over during the seasons 1892 and 
1893 netted shippers f. o. b. at their stations $1.42 per box. 
He also informed me that no statistics have been compiled for 
this year yet. 
It may perhaps be wise to call the attention of the Society 
to the fact that there is a movement being agitated in New 
York to control the sale of fruit at auction by permitting none 
but members of the fruit exchange to bid, thus shutting out 
dealers and peddlers. This I think would be a serious blow 
to the auction system of sales. 
From the best advice I have and from consultation with 
numerous people and by correspondence with growers, I feel 
confident in asserting that the proceeds, from our oranges was 
not above 20 per cent, of what they sold for the previous 
season. When it takes from 60 to 80 per cent, of any pro¬ 
duct for marketing it, it does seem to me that a sensible and 
reasonable man should seriously study the situation. It can 
have but one end and that universal disaster to the business 
and distress and poverty to the growers. The enormous 
amount charged for the carriage of our fruit to market is far 
beyond what is charged for any other commodity grown upon 
the soil. The statistics as furnished to the Inter-State Com¬ 
merce Commission by the managers of the different railroads 
of this country, show that the average cost of moving a ton 
of freight is something under six mills per mile. Now, if 
each one of you will take and figure for yourself the amount 
of freight charged you to the basing point, be it Jacksonville, 
Gainesville or Callahan, estimating twenty-five boxes to the 
ton, you will see that you are paying from 100 per cent, to 
1,000 per cent, beyond the actual cost of carriage. That is 
not the worst feature. We all know that water transpoi tation 
is far cheaper than railroad transportation, but if you allow 
to the coastwise steamers engaged in this trade the same rate 
per mile that it costs the railroad companies to carry a ton of 
freight, you will find that they are exacting from you over 
and above the cost, of carriage 25 per cent, to 50 per cent. 
