FORTY-FOURTH ANNUAL REPORT. 61 



inau'd for membership was so persistent tliat tlie association deemed 

 it advisable to increase the membership to 100 members and the capital 

 stock to 110,000. 



In forming a co-operative marketing association, do not get yonr 

 expectations overheated, as you will meet with disappointments, as 

 all business enterprises do, and find difficulties to overcome, all of which 

 can be successfully accomplished if you organize with sufficient capital, 

 employ an efficient manager and have a capable board of directors to 

 sustain him. The only way I can see that you will get your share of the 

 dollar is to co-operate. 



'^Get money enough to do business with and then go ahead and do it. 

 That is the only way." 



"I heard a very prominent fruit grower make a statement that he had 

 visited the cellar of a prominent commission man in Chicago and that 

 (here they were re-packing apples, facing them up in the bottom of 

 the barrel, putting a stove pipe in the middle, filling it up with culls, 

 facing the top and selling them as Michigan Packed apples." 



Question: Why did he not make a complaint about it? 



Answer : He did make a complaint in a public meeting. 



Q. Why was something not done about it? 



A. Well, you know we are all busy people and sometimes these things 

 are not attended to as they should be. , 



The members of the association do not have to deliver their fruit to 

 the association if they don't want to. They make an estimate of the 

 amount they will have and give it to the manager and each member 

 signs a contract to deliver all his fruit of such varieties as he elects 

 and no more. He doesn't have to deliver all his fruit, and the associa- 

 tion doesn't have to receive his fruit if he is an objectionable member. 

 We have never yet had to refuse any fruit on this account, but we don't 

 have to receive fruit if it is objectionable. If the grower doesn't care 

 to deliver his peaches but does his apples and pears, he may do so, but 

 he must deliver whatever he agrees to. 



Some men might tliink that they can make more by trying to work 

 a crooked game, but the association will not try it, and they know that 

 they cannot beat a skin game. Anybody who does not like to stay in, 

 can drop out, but we have never had anybody yet leave the association. 



It is not necessary Avith the association to have any loss because of 

 commission men claiming low grade. If I take a load of apples to the 

 association and they are 60%, first, I get credit for just what I bring. 

 They are brought in and graded and you get your receipt for it. Every 

 man is treated alike, and the manager is not a fruit grower, but a sal- 

 aried manager who works for the association and not for the interests 

 of one individual. We are a business organization, and I venture to 

 say that we do business on as firm a foundation as any bank operating 

 in Kalamazoo today. You will always have kickers and faultfinders in 

 any association and there are always certain people who say it can't 

 be done, but you notice tJiat the things that they say can't be done, 

 are the ones that are being done. 



After a man has invested a hundred dollars in any thing, he begins 

 to feel an interest in it, and he takes hold and pushes things and works 

 as if it were his own personal affair. It makes every members of the 



