slightly by making it apply on more weight. In 1901 we reduced it again, voluntarily, to $80 a car, making a reduction of 41 per cent in the rate from the time we went in there under an exclusive contract. Mr. ESCH. For your icing in southern territory you of course had to ship the ice in from the North. How do you supply the ice?

Mr. ROBBINS. Ordinarily in the South we use manufactured ice. Mr. ADAMSON. I was going to ask you if those ice plants at Columbus, Macon, and other places are not sufficient to accommodate you? Mr. ROBBINS. Ordinarily they are, but in a season like last year there was not local ice enough in the whole southern country. We . shipped from Pensacola and Jacksonville and from Lake Erie on the north. We bought all the ice we could find and had to go as far as Lake Erie to get enough.

Mr. MANN. Referring to these charges from Sacramento, would that also apply from southern California?

Mr. ROBBINS. No, sir; the northern California rate and the southern California rate are handled separately. They are two separate and distinct propositions.

Mr. RYAN. When you made a reduction of the rate from Georgia points to New York did you then have exclusive contracts with all the Georgia roads or only the one you mentioned?

Mr. ROBBINS. Well, we may not have had exclusive contracts with all the roads, but I think we did with the lines originating perhaps 90 per cent of the business, practically all.

Further, in answer to Mr. Adamson's inquiry, I am reminded that in 1898, when we first built the ice house at Marshallville and Fort Valley, we had to ship ice from Maine by vessels. That was in 1899, I should say. In that year, after we had filled those houses, there was not a single acre of peaches shipped out of Georgia. The peach crop was destroyed by frost, and that ice melted away.

Mileage alone does not afford reasonable remuneration on cars in the fruit business, owing to the unavoidable delay to equipment awaiting loading during the intervals between seasons. Strictly first-class refrigeration, by the use of suitable cars, full icing, and competent supervision, is invaluable to the shipper of highly perishable berries, fruit, etc.

After many years' trial it has been found that the only practicable method of handling the fruit and berry business of any large producing section satisfactorily is for the car lines to agree to furnish all the cars and ice required (in some cases to the extent of 5,000 individual cars) or be responsible for failure to do so, and for the railroad to agree to use such cars only.

Arrangements are then made, generally several years in advance, for equipment, ice supply, stations, and other facilities not obtainable on short notice. The car company does the refrigerating cheaper under exclusive contracts and agrees, in making such contracts with the railroads, not to advance the refrigeration rates, and frequently reductions have been made voluntarily when conditions warranted.

Expenditures have been made from time to time by our company until upward of $15,000,000 have been invested in equipment, repair shops, icing stations, and other facilities scattered throughout the country.

Armour Car Lines, a corporation owning and operating cars, have never bought or sold any of the product transported in their cars.

Armour & Co. and Armour Packing Company have, to a limited extent, dealt in produce-particularly potatoes and apples, which do not require refrigeration but have ceased dealing in produce since May, 1904. Armour & Co. and Armour Packing Company do a limited business in butter, eggs, and poultry as a natural adjunct to their packing-house business. This business is handled on equal terms with other shippers, and Armour Car Lines do not solicit any other business of this kind. Now, in that connection I want to enlarge a little on that subject. The statements made here about dealing in the articles transported are absolutely incorrect. Armour & Co. or the Armour Packing Company or any Armour interests have never dealt in fruits. It was stated here to-day that they had, and were now dealing, and might again deal, in fruit. Absolutely the contrary is the case. Of course, in saying that I draw the distinction between fruit such as peaches, for example, and potatoes and beans, which we buy for canning, and other articles generally classed as produce. Our car business, in the main, is carrying highly perishable stuff, such as strawberries and peaches, in which we have never dealt in any way, shape, or manner. We never have bought or sold-any Armour interests a car of Michigan peaches or a car of Georgia peaches, although that intimation, at least, has been very strongly thrown out here.

Now, I want to qualify that broad statement in one respect only. During a period summer before last California had an over-production of fruit. The markets were flooded and they could not place it. The shippers importuned us to help them out by trying to market some of that fruit at some of our branch houses at smaller towns, where they had no facilities to handle it. We responded in that direction and handled 160-odd cars during a period of about two months. None of those cars went to any of the large cities. They went to the smaller places, where carloads of California fruit had not theretofore been handled. Those shipments were handled on consignment for the benefit of the shippers to relieve a glut. We never have handled any such shipments before or since. The exception that I have just stated, while it may have been distasteful to the middlemen, the commission men, was highly gratifying to the shippers. It practically saved them that number of carloads of fruit, which otherwise would have been wasted. That point about our dealing in fruit and being a competitor has been dwelt on time and time again, and I would like to clear up the mind of anyone who has any doubt on that subject.

Mr. STEVENS. We have just had filed by Mr. Ferguson a letter signed by Armour & Co. with reference to a carload of tomatoes from Arkansas.

Mr. ROBBINS. Yes, potatoes and tomatoes.

Mr. STEVENS. Yes.

Mr. ROBBINS. That letter is dated May, 1904, and previous to May we did handle produce to a small extent. That letter fits exactly with my statements. That was before the date on which we quit handling produce. We did handle it in a small way previous to May, 1904.

I might add further in that connection, that of the produce handled by Armour & Co., a comparatively small part was loaded in cars with the Armour equipment. It consisted largely of beans and potatoes and apples, which did not require any kind of equipment, and was shipped largely in box cars, and Armour & Co. handled that in the same way as though the Armour Car Lines did not own any cars.

It

was handled on its own merits. The tomatoes we sometimes use in connection with our canning business as we do beans. We put up pork and beans with tomato catsup; and of course we have and always will have to buy some of them for our own use, which I do not imagine any body would object to.

Mr. STEVENS. What about the charge that you bought in Michigan in competition with vegetable buyers and sellers?

Mr. ROBBINS. We at one time handled some potatoes for Michigan. We never handled fruit or berries. That there was any discrimination in our own behalf by the use of our cars is absolutely untrue. Generally speaking, we did not undertake to furnish cars in Michigan for potatoes. Sometimes, if we had a few scattering cars on the line, they were picked up and used by the railroads, and in that event we did not distribute the cars. If an Armour & Co. shipper was waiting and got one of those cars, we could not distribute that car. The distribution was in the hands of the railroad. It was in the hands of the railroad, and we had nothing to do with it, and I well remember a case where our own produce department undertook to get relief in the way of cars, and they were simply told that they stood the same as any other shipper; that we did not have any cars to spare at that season, and they would get cars the same as any other shipper.

Mr. STEVENS. You do a dairy and poultry business?

Mr. Robbins. We do a butter, egg, and poultry business in a small way, and have for probably ten years, more or less, which we consider a natural adjunct to our packing-house business. Our branch houses sell poultry in the same way as they sell beef.

Mr. STEVENS. In doing that you utilize your refrigerating outfit for the transportation of those articles?

Mr. ROBBINS. We use our packing-house cars in distinction from our fruit cars. On the other hand, we do not solicit any other butter, egg, and poultry shipments in our cars. We do not try to do any competitive business. We simply load our own cars with butter, eggs, and poultry, as a matter of business. For instance, we will be shipping to-day 100 cars of packing-house products, and an order will come in for butter, eggs, and poultry, and that will be run into these. cars the same as if it was beef. As to going outside and seeking other butter, egg, and poultry business, we do not do it, and never have done. it. It is possible that sometimes, if a road gets short of its own equipment, it might appropriate one of our cars and load it with butter, eggs, and poultry; but we have nothing to do with it, and we would get nothing but our mileage out of it, and we never seek that business.

Mr. STEVENS. Refrigeration is necessary for butter and eggs on long journeys, is it not?

Mr. ROBBINS. Yes, sir; but that almost universally is supplied by the railroads themselves.

Mr. ADAMSON. If they charter one of your cars, they supply the ice? Mr. ROBBINS. They supply the ice, and we get the mileage.

Mr. STEVENS. Do you sell butter and eggs and things like that in Mr. Adamson's country in Georgia?

Mr. ROBBINS. Yes, sir.

Mr. STEVENS. Suppose you took them down from Chicago, you would perform the same refrigerator service on that that you would on anybody else's?

Mr. ROBBINS. Yes, sir; that is, the same service would be performed. We might not perform it.

Mr. STEVENS. But if you did perform it there would be the same profit on that as on anybody else's?

Mr. BOBBINS. Well, I might try to make it clear again. The butter, egg, and poultry business, as to refrigeration, is handled a little differently from almost any other commodity. The raiload rate is high on that, and in the rate they absorb the cost of the ice, which I believe is not done on any other commodity-certainly not on becf or fruit, with which I am familiar.

Mr. ADAMSON. Is the same car available to haul the butter and eggs and also peaches and strawberries?

Mr. ROBBINS. It might be fairly usable for it. But in our business we use the same cars for butter, eggs, and poultry as we do for beef and provisions, which is a radically different car from the one we use for fruit.

Mr. ADAMSON. So that you can not utilize the same car in hauling something the year around?

Mr. ROBBINS. Put it in another way. The beef car is not suitable for the fruit, and neither is the fruit car suitable for the beef.

Mr. STEVENS. Why?

Mr. ROBBINS. For one reason the beef car has racks and a roof from which the beef is hung.

Mr. STEVENS. It is a matter of construction?

Mr. ROBBINS. The beef is loaded out of a cooler at a temperature of about freezing and carried in cars having what we call closed bunkers, in which broken ice and salt is used, and a temperature carried only a few degrees above freezing, whereas for fruit cake ice is used, and a temperature of 42 to 45 or even 50 is all that is required. The fruit is also loaded hot out of the fields, and the fruit car has an ice capacity of about two and a half times as much as the cars of some of these railroads that are sometimes offered and sometimes used for fruit, which have about half the capacity of our fruit cars.

Mr. STEVENS. In transporting dairy products, for example, to Georgia you would handle, as I say, your own products just the same as you would anybody else's?

Mr. ROBBINS. Generally speaking, yes, sir; we would make no distinction.

Mr. STEVENS. And if there was any excessive charge or profit in icing or any service rendered on anybody else's products, that would be a discrimination against the products so charged, would it not?

Mr. ROBBINS. I think there is no refrigeration profit on anything that Armour & Co. ship under present conditions.

Mr. STEVENS. That is, you maintain that you do your refrigeration

at cost?

Mr. ROBBINS. No, sir. As I have explained, the railroad companies do their refrigerating on the butter, eggs, and poultry at their own expense, and on the beef the shippers do their own icing and take their own risk. It is a regular year round business.

Mr. STEVENS. Then all the refrigerating you do is on the fruit? Mr. ROBBINS. That is the main business; yes, sir; the main business. The business on which we make these stated refrigeration charges as printed is essentially the business of berries, fruits, and some kinds of vegetables.

Mr. STEVENS. What proportion of your equipment is necessary for the fruit traffic?

Mr. ROBBINS. In a general way we have about two-thirds of the cars in the fruit business and one-third in the packing-house business. Mr. EscH. How many in all

Mr. ROBBINS. Six thousand fruit cars; 8,000 with the packing-house

cars.

Mr. STEVENS. Would you estimate what proportion of the year these various cars are used in the business?

Mr. ROBBINS. The packing-house business is, of course, a year-round business, and the cars are in service most of the time. There is usually a dull time around Christmas when poultry takes precedence, and sometimes in the summer the shipments of beef are lighter; but most of the beef cars are in regular service. The fruit cars are in service, I should think, about three-fourths of the time and about one-fourth of the time out of service, principally in the winter.

Mr. RYAN. It was stated here that you have an exclusive contract with some of the railroads which gives you a knowledge of what other shippers are doing. Does that give you an advantage in the market on the dairy products you have handled as against the other shippers? Mr. ROBBINS. We have no advice whatever of any other dairy shipper's business. If we handle anybody else's dairy business it is because our car is stolen for the purpose and we know nothing what ever about the shipment, and there would be no reason for us to get it. Neither do we get any such advice. The point I think you have in mind has been enlarged on somewhat-that in handling this fruit and dairy business we get advices on everybody's shipments, whether they are in our cars or whether they are not. That is not so. We have no advices except as to our own business-that is, the shipments made in our cars-to enable us to ice them en route..

Mr. ADAMSON. You do not handle other people's dairy products at all?

Mr. ROBBINS. No, sir; generally speaking, we do not.

Mr. RYAN. How would that apply to produce, potatoes, and apples, for instance?

Mr. ROBBINS. Potatoes, for example, are never refrigerated, and if they were loaded in our cars we, at the time at least, would have no advice as to the shipment.

Mr. RYAN. No; not about the icing, but as to the advantage that you might have on the market that might otherwise be taken by others? Mr. ROBBINS. I think I touch on that point here in my statement especially.

Mr. MANN. Before you proceed, let me call your attention to the statement which was made here by Mr. Meade, in which he stated that if a railroad company with which you have an exclusive contract had any other carload of fruit on that line, you would be advised so that you could run your car in ahead of the other shipper's car, and thereby prevent the sale of his fruit?

Mr. ROBBINS. That is absolutely untrue. We have no advices as to anybody else's cars. As to our own cars, we need to know the destination on route to attend to the icing; but our produce department never knows of that information. We do not handle and never have handled berries and fruit, which comprise perhaps 95 to 98 per cent of the shipments in our cars, so that the inference that we would use