Nov. 2, 1908.] Agricultural Gazette of N.SJF. Oil 



Ttje Co-operative Marketiijg of Citrus Fruits. 



The California Fruit-Gkowers' Exchange. 



The Honorable the Minister for Agriculture is in receipt of a letter from Mr. 

 A. Downe, a resident of Los Angeles, California, who recently visited New 

 South Wales, and made a careful inspection of the citrus groves of the County 

 ■of Cumberland. Mr. Downe has an orchard of some 24 acres at Duarte, 

 California, and can therefore speak as a fruit-grower to fruit-growers. Mr. 

 Downe refers to the prevalence of fumigating with cyanide in preference to 

 spraying, declaring that the latter process has been abandoned, as it causes 

 " die-back " of the fine twigs and sprouts. 



The freight from California to New York is is. 6d. per 100 lb. box a 

 distance of 3,000 miles. 



Oranges are shipped east to New York and London and throughout Canada, 

 and arrive in good condition. 



The new ci'op for next year promises to be a heavy one, proljably the 

 heaviest for years, due no doubt, Mr. Downe says, to liberal fertilising and 

 fumigating. 



The marketing of the enormous ci'op is as important as growing it, and 

 California fruit-growei"s have established the California Fruit-Growers' 

 Exchange to perform this work. As there is nothing of this kind in existence 

 in this State, the need of such a corporation was apparent to Mr. Downe ; he 

 has therefore been to no little trouble in collecting information on the suliject. 

 From a pamphlet issued by the California Fruit-Growers' Exchange forwarded 

 by Mr. Downe the following is taken : — 



" Twenty-five years ago tlu^ annual total shipments were scarcely twenty 

 carloads. Fifteen yeai'.^ ago the annual shipments were apjjroximately 

 4,000 carloads, or slightly in excess of a million and a quarter Iwxes (a box 

 holds 2 cubic feet). 



" Since that time there has been an increase from year to year, until the 

 average of the last three seasons lias reached the vast vcdume of -10,000 

 carloads, or 11,000,000 boxes yearly. The net f.o.b. value of the crop of 

 1906 has been conservatively estimated at twenty million dollars. 



" When citrus fruit-growing in California emerged from the stage of 

 experiment and pastime into that of profit-seeking, tlie ]irobleiu of marketing 

 immediately confronted the growers. They were thousands of miles from the 

 populous centres in which their fruit must find consumers, and they had 

 practically no home markets nor agencies througli which they could convert 

 it into ready money at i-emunerative figures. It is true there were speculators 

 in the field, bvit their offers to buy were at very low prices, and only spasmodic 

 at best. This is not strange, as the speculators were but go-betweens, and 

 the markets being unfleveloped, they could only offer for the most part to 

 take the fruit on consignment for grower's account. If passing the speculator 

 by, the gi-ower sought relief by consigning his produce to the market himself, 



