EXPERIENCE OF A CO-OPERATIVE FRUIT GROWERS ASS'N 115 



ially the first year, we desired to get the growers all lined up, and 

 to watch the fruit carefully, so that we felt sure there Avas nothing 

 going out that was going to work against the reputation of the asso- 

 ciation. We wanted to be particularly careful the first year, so that 

 the fruit that went onto the market would please the purchasers and 

 they would come back for more. Well, this fall, inasmuch as we 

 had sold the great bulk of our fruit to one house, and the selling end 

 was not crowding us very much I took the matter of inspection myself. 

 With the aid of a Ford automobile, I got around from one orchard 

 to another, and I think I averaged reaching each orchard about 

 every day and a half during the entire packing season. 



I traveled from 150 to 200 miles a day and visited from 8 to 10 

 to 15 orchards. In inspecting this pack during the packing season we 

 drove that Ford automobile between seven and eight thousand miles. 

 Some growers thought it was not necessary that we have such a rigid 

 inspection. I believed it was, and I found there was very few times 

 that I got to an orchard but what there was something there that 

 needed attention. 



Now we know there is no two men, — they may be ever so honest 

 or honorable, — who have the same idea of what a number one apple 

 is. You give one man a set of rules, defining or describing what a 

 number one apple is, and go over here and give the some set of rules 

 to another man, and they can be ever so conscientious, and yet this 

 man will not put up the same pack of fruit as the other one. For 

 that reason, we found it necessary to place the interpretation of thoGS 

 rules in thg hands of one man, so that we would get a uniform pack, 

 over the entire section, and that was delegated to the manager. 

 As the association grows, of course we will have to have more inspect- 

 ors, and we have worked out the plans for that. Now we have started 

 really to build a skeleton in the organizing of our association, and 

 fi'om that we expect to spread out. In other sections of the 

 country they have started in different ways in many cases. They 

 have formed local associations, and community associations, land 

 when a number of those were organized, then they were united or 

 federated under one general head, but we thought that if we waited 

 for the community association to be organized in Nebraska, that it 

 would be sometime before we would have a co-operative association 

 of any size in eastern Nebraska. And so we picked the best growers 

 in the state, — we did not get them all, — there are a few of the good 

 growers who are not yet in the association, but we took most of the 

 best growers in eastern Nebraska, and we got those men together. 

 They were men who had had some business experience, more th-an 

 the average farmer has had, and they could see tlie importance of 

 sticking together, and sacrificing the first year, for the benefits they 

 were going to get in the future. Now I do not think there was any of 

 the members of the association that expected to get very much more 



