\ 



194 Report oj State Board of Horticulture. 



Spitzenbergs brought $1.50 per box at orchard. The latter found a 

 market in New York and Chicago. Many buyers from London and eastern 

 cities come directly to orchard to contract for our fruit. There seems to 

 be unlimited demand for strictly high-grade fancy stock. 



Let the watchword be— Quality— Quality— QUALITY! 



FKUIT UNIONS. 



PAPER READ BEFORE FRUITGROWERS' CONVENTION AND STU- 

 DENTS OF OREGON AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE, AT 

 CORVALLIS, FEBRUARY 13 AND 14, 1902. 



By Peof. E. L. Smith. 



Of all the industrial classes, the farmer and horticulturist is the least 

 inclined to enter into, and profit by united and organized effort. 



Over productiorr has been followed by such demoralizing and ruinous 

 competition that most of the industries of the country have been driven 

 into combines for self preservation. 



Manufacturers have very generally entered into great corporate trusts, 

 absorbing competing concerns, and instead of selling their products at 

 unprofitable prices as they may have done in the past, have gone to the 

 opposite extreme in order that dividends may be declared on unreal values. 



Transportation companies with parallel lines demoralized tariffs in the 

 struggle for business and landed in the hands of receivers. 



Entering into binding compacts to maintain uniformity of rates the 

 '•eceivers were soon discharged and control restored to them. 



The laborer, without whom there would be no traffic, and we might 

 add no civilization, perceiving that he counted for so little as an indi- 

 vidual and that there was force and influence in the aggregation if mem- 

 bers organized, his union and obtained valuable concessions, that would 

 never have come to him through individual effort. 



Corporations stretch the wires across continents or pay out the long 

 cables that rest on ocean beds, wires burdened with the business exchanges 

 of the world or momentous affairs of governments. On every side we are 

 confronted with numberless combinations of men and money transacting 

 the business affairs of the world. 



The same rule of effective organization obtains outside of industrial 

 classes. The sects of Christendom propagate their tenets through con- 

 ferences and councils, through bishops and cardinals and that denomena- 

 tion has the firmest hold upon its members that is most thoroughly or- 

 ganized. Even the politician relies upon his caucus, conventions and 

 committee men to aid his ambitions and woe to the helpless aspirant who 

 cannot enlist the support of the machine. 



