A SUCCESSFUL FRUIT GROWERS ASSOCIATION 47 



difficult matter with our present facilities for telephoning and tele- 

 graphing. A competent manager spells success, and a poor one, failure. 



The greatest enemies that cooperation has today are its own 

 members, especially is this true where they are near a market, or there 

 are outside buyers in the field, they use the association as a matter 

 of convenience, and when the prices look good they sell to the other 

 fellow, and when they cannot sell on account of bad markets they 

 turn their stuff over to the association and then cuss the manager for 

 not making better returns. Such members are an absolute detriment 

 a? they do not think of co-operation extending beyond themselves 

 and their neighbors. 



What we must have is cooperation all along the line beginning 

 with the producer down to the ultimate consumer, and by system 

 and education strive to create a vehicle that will protect us against 

 our own dishonesty while protecting us against the dishonesty of 

 ethers so as to assure us of a square deal, and also those we deal with. 



The man who has something to sell should strive to gain the 

 confidence and respect of those he deals with as the confidence of his 

 customers is one of his greatest assets. With it he need fear no com- 

 petition as when you have gained a customer's confidece by fair and 

 honest treatment that customer will pay you the highest market price 

 for your products before going to some one in whom he has not the 

 same confidence. Keep your promises, fulfill your contracts as honest 

 dealings like chickens will come home to roost. 



Snide and sharp practice may seem to prosper for a time but while 

 apparently sailing in calm and peaceful waters your ship will sooner 

 or later strike some hidden rock and will be consigned to a dishonor- 

 ed grave. 



The modus operandi of distribution as practiced by our most 

 successful marketing Exchanges today is proving most successful; in 

 many instances a single exchange is handling the output of hundreds 

 of growers with very satisfactory results, and if we had no more serious 

 problems to solve than those that confront us today we could with 

 safety rest on our oars and glide along with the tide, but there booms up 

 before us in the near future one that overshadows those of today; the 

 brightest minds in the fruit industry a:-e planning, scheming, and de_ 

 vising ways and means for handling the enormous increase in apples 

 which will be upon us i na very few years. 



^lissouri with her 1.5,000 acres of apple orchards hardly causes 

 a ripple on our markets today, but if the plans of men who have taken 

 upon themselves to reclaim these orchards prove successful, and I 

 believe they will meet with success as they are very earnest and capable 

 men, it will mean that there will be thousands upon thousands of 

 barrels of good commercial apples thrown upon our markets in the 

 next few years. There is not a man who has given the subject thought 

 and investigation but knows that only about 10% of planted orchards 

 in the northwestern states, Washington, Oregon and Idaho, are pro. 



