FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
145 
fruit all for the benefit of the railroad corporations and the 
•commission men. 
He believed there was a remedy; that it lay in organization; 
that if the matter was properly taken up the railroads would 
meet the growers half way. He did not believe, as had been 
suggested by some, that it was necessary to go to Atlanta and 
appear before the Tariff Association. Only a day before he 
had been assured by a railroad official whose attention he 
called to these rates, that he would take pleasure in meeting 
such an association for the purpose of devising a more equit¬ 
able rate. The members of the society did not seem willing 
to invite the railroad representatives to discuss these matters 
with them. What then could be done. Will the rates better 
themselves? The railroad’s interests and the fruit grower’s 
interest are mutual. They should go hand in hand. If the 
fruit growers of'the state are successful, the railroads will be 
successful aho, and they are not going to make a rate and 
maintain that rate if it will retard the progress of their traffic. 
The facts must be put before them. They must be made to 
understand them. If we organized, we could do as much as 
California. If the society did not take the matter in hand, in 
his opinion, this neglect of duty would be a matter of regret 
later on. 
Mr. Healy, Chairman of the Transportation Committee, 
said no grower was more willing than he to take a part in an 
association for the purpose of ascertaining and applying a 
remedy for these transportation evils. But “you might just 
as w’ell apply for a remedy in your transportation matters, to 
the king of the cannibal islands, as to ask the general freight 
agents of the State of Florida to meet you here. It would be 
a wretched far^e. They have nothing to do with the making 
of freight rates. If you go to Atlanta and invite the South¬ 
ern Freight Association to meet you here, and convince them 
that the rates are wrong (your committee is satisfied that the 
rates are wrong), or if you appoint a committee to go before 
these people and make their demands, I have no doubt but 
that they would be entertained, and I believe that is one way 
to remedy the rate; and I believe that something might be 
accomplished, but these people here in Florida are not in it a 
little bit. They make a rate, and the great big Pennsylvania 
railroad dots an u i” and they are smashed out of existence. 
They are nowhere. They do not know anything about it. 
Now, the orange grower can remedy his rates, and these men 
that get up and make a great howl about the rate and then 
put their hands in their pockets and contribute 10 per cent, of 
th eir earnings to transport their product, can have all they 
.have got to New York, Philadelphia, Boston or Baltimore, 
