THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN 
285 
From Railroad Official regarding the question: 
“From a classification standpoint, it would appear to me 
that the nursery people have at the present time an advan¬ 
tage; at least the rating of fourth class is fair, considering 
the loading. If it could be shown that 20,000 pounds could 
be loaded, then possibly fifth class rate would not be out of 
line, but this, however, is questionable on account of the per¬ 
ishable nature of the commodity. Of course, there are some 
commodities, such as flax straw, hay, shavings, cotton waste, 
and possibly others, upon which commodity rates apply lower 
than the classification basis.” 
The following resolution by Mr. F. W. Kelsey regard¬ 
ing tracing: 
“RESOLVED that it is the sense of this Association that 
action be taken as early as practicable, by the railroads and 
other transportation companies, in the adoption of a system of 
tracing all nursery stock shipments, in order that the need¬ 
less and costly delays now incident to the shipment of this 
material be minimized or avoided. 
“RESOLVED that this subject be referred to the Commit¬ 
tee on Transportation with power.” 
No particular action has been taken regarding this 
resolution as in the judgment of your Committee it would 
be a useless effort and an expenditure of money. 
The following resolution by the American Railway As¬ 
sociation will explain in part why no action was taken: 
“RESOLVED that the American Railway Association con¬ 
curs fully in the resolution of the executive and traffic officers 
as expressed in their resolution following, and that its mem¬ 
bers be requested to use every effort to have the traffic offi¬ 
cials of their lines take action to curtail this practice. 
“It is the sense of your Committee that tracing of ship¬ 
ments, either by wire or mail, should be confined to ship¬ 
ments which show unusual delay in transit; that no tracing 
should be done until, in the usual handling of freight, ship¬ 
ments should have reached destination. It was intended by 
this that the practice of tracing from initial point to destina¬ 
tion, immediately the freight is offered for shipment, and ad¬ 
vising delivery of furnishing passing reports to shippers or 
consignees, be discontinued.” 
“Indiscriminate and unnecessary tracing impairs the effec¬ 
tiveness of the service. Better results will be obtained if 
tracing is confined to actual needs. We solicit your coopera¬ 
tion.” 
Also the following from railroad Traffic Department: 
“I have secured copies of our Waybills, together with 
placards used on our cars, and also copy of instructions gov¬ 
erning the handling of freight traffic in which you will note 
that nursery stock is classified under “EXPEDITE 
FREIGHT.” In other words, this class of traffic is given pre¬ 
ference over a large number of other items, as will be noted 
by the publication referred to. Cars likewise are placarded 
and the train service on expedite freight is superior to other 
classes of service. To my mind, any tracing by shippers of 
the class of traffic which you handle does not facilitate the 
movement of the shipments. You will see that the traffic 
is billed on special waybills and is carded as special traffic; 
therefore, everything that the railroad can do is done to 
facilitate prompt movement.” 
I have here some cards, blank waybills and instruc¬ 
tions from some of the carriers showing how time freight 
is handled and what efforts they are making to expedite 
such movements. From this we trust the Association 
will see that the railroads are endeavoring to the best of 
their ability to handle nursery stock and perishable 
frieght with the utmost dispatch, and while it is true some 
shipments will be delayed, no matter what system is 
adopted, we believe that on the whole the nurserymen 
have no great complaint to make on account of the slow 
movement of their shipments. 
Tree Seed not Otherwise Specified —less than car 
loads—have been rated as first-class in all of the Glassifi¬ 
cations, but this question was taken up during the year 
with the Uniform and other Glassification Committees 
with the result that effective January 1st, 1916, the Wes¬ 
tern and Official gave us third class rating and July 1st 
the Southern a second class rating. This does not affect 
peach seed which take a still lower rating. 
Has the Carrier the Right to Require Prepayment of 
Freight Charges? 
This question was submitted to the Transportation 
Committee and we referred same to the Vice-President 
and General Counsel of the Traffic World, Washington, 
D. C., and below we give his reply: 
“The law gives the carrier the right to require a prepay¬ 
ment of his freight and may refuse to carry the goods unless 
it is paid. It does not bind the carrier to deal on credit and 
he may demand the price of his labor before it is performed. 
The federal counts have held that the common law right of 
requiring payment in advance of some customers, and ex¬ 
tending credit to others has not been taken away by the 
Interstate Commerce Act, and does not subject the carrier to 
charge of discrimination by so doing. As a consequence, 
and especially with perishable freight, carriers frequently 
require charges to be prepaid or be guaranteed by the 
shipper.” 
Warning! The following paragraph is an exact dupli¬ 
cate taken from one of the letters received from a nur¬ 
seryman by our company a few months ago: 
“Ship all plants with your tree orders, ninety-five per cent, 
of the nurserymen this past year shipped their stock to their 
packing houses and then they went out to their patrons with 
their tree orders.” 
As no doubt all of the nurserymen know, strawberry 
plants and not dormant nursery stock take a first-class 
rating, in boxes less than car lots, while trees and shrub¬ 
bery and other dormant nursery stock, takes third class, 
in Western and Southern territory and Rule 25, in official, 
therefore, if the nurserymen are combining not dormant 
stock and dormant shipments as stated by this party, it 
will only be a matter of time until the carriers become 
aware of the fact, in which case your freight rates will 
jump from third to first class, which would mean an in¬ 
crease of from 50 to 65 per cent. Furthermore such 
practice is in direct violation of the act to regulate com¬ 
merce and is subject to both fine and imprisonment. 
Your Committee trusts that with this warning all nur¬ 
serymen, especially members of this Association, will use 
their efforts to see that such practice is discontinued. 
Change in Minimum Southern Classification Ter¬ 
ritory: The Southern Classification have placed on their 
June docket the question of adopting the Official Classifi¬ 
cation minimum instead of that now in force, and if so, 
it will be in favor of the nurserymen, as the following 
figures will show: 
Minimum Car Load Weights—Western Classification, 
Rule 6, B. 
14,560 
15,040 
tbs. 
tt 
cars 
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33 ft. 
over 
6 in. 
33 ft. 
and under 
6 in. to and 
inc. 
34 
ft. 6 
in 
15,520 
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16,000 
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16,480 
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37 
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16,960 
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17,440 
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38 “ 
6 
tt 
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17,920 
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39 “ 
6 
it 
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40 
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