Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 39, Number 26, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 November 1906 — BIG CROPS AND CAR SHORTAGE. [ARTICLE]

BIG CROPS AND CAR SHORTAGE.

Railroads Unable to Supply Means of Transportation. There has never been a time, not simply this year,- but in any previous year, when there was such a pressing demand for all the rolling stock that all the big lines could muster, and that in serviceable condition, says the Boston Transcript. . Our overwhelming national production has apparently caught us unawares. The West is complaining loud~ly; almost angrily, -nf-var shortage, and the railroads are confronted with the heaviest responsibility in their history in the task of moving crops. Prosperity does not consist of abundance merely, but also of facilities for inoving and distributing that abundance to the points where de-mand-awaits .it in_the -quickest-time 'and at reasonable rates. But there are very many embarrassing hitches iu the present situation, which has become so strained that shippers- are in some cases actually -charging the traffic managers with inaugurating an artificial cat famine. .This, however, is not probable. We caiinot niiagiiie any advantage. present oi; urosiHLCtire. likely to accrue to the roads from a policy of having an.excess of perishable goods in tlie hands of producers or shippers ; but between the producer and the carrier are a large class of merchants, shippers and exporters, and they are the men who are feeling the nervous and almost panicky* strain that comes from congestion and delay. Tlie roads all through the West are operating their shops to their fullest capacity- to increase their rolling stock, and this condition of affairs emphasizes the fact that any considerable strike among .carsnop men would be particularly deplored at this time. : —:A—rnrirrrrt- of th is t rouble -is the difficulty experienced by the Aroostook farmers in Maine in getting their potato crop to market. The yield there is unprecedented, the estimate being 17,000,000 fyushels, but even with cellars an"d storehouses bulging, fear is entertained that cold weather will come before the imperfect means of transportation can relieve them. —We ran hardly hold the big lines responsible for this state of things, but it 4s -none the less a -minor manifestation of the same general shortage. It probably means, also, that railroad lines in northern Maine are becoming inadequate to the development of that section.