SUMMER MEETING. 63 



duction that the danger lies, but instead, in the crops unequal distri- 

 bution. Your output properly and judiciously disseminated and your 

 problem is solved and you will not have even a fractional remainder 

 to leave on your vines or give to the birds. You are not raising a 

 case, a box or a berry too many, but you have not as yet mastered 

 the situation in regard to properly marketing this great product. It 

 is pleasant, however, to note that you are assiduously studying how to 

 remedy this grievous error, and in a little while, we hope in another 

 season, you will be placing car lots with justice toward all and malice 

 toward none, and reaping the reward your labor in developing the in- 

 dustry so richly deserves. 



Do not glut or over crowd any one market or any individual re- 

 ceiver. Give the house your association ships to as even a supply as 

 possible and then see to it that he does not over-crowd himself by ask- 

 ing from your neighbors and getting in larger quantities than he can 

 handle to advantage. The difiliculty, as it does and has appeared, 

 lies in the asking of too much and of the giving too bountifully. 



Proper, just and equitable distribution should be your ambition. 

 Not only in marketing your strawberries, but your peaches, apples and 

 other fruit that you so largely consign as well. Co-operation in any 

 industry prolongs its usefulness, regulates its supply and demand and 

 ninety-nine times out of a hundred produces the best possible general 

 result. You have realized its benefits in your home organization and 

 have locally felt its beneficent influences. But you have not yet gotten 

 all there is in it and you are just at the threshold of its relative worth, 

 where, I am sorry to say, many of you are only too anxious to stop and 

 go no farther. This is not wise nor is it courageous. 



My idea is, that unity of action and oneness of purpose among the 

 ■different associations between Van Buren and Springfield, Carthage 

 and Monett will be the scalpel that will make the incision, find the 

 trouble and remove the obstruction. It is more than a little difiicult to 

 say just how co-operation can be brought about to the best interests 

 of all concerned, but weightier problems than this have been solved 

 and this can be, surely. I will quote from a letter in my possession 

 from a gentleman who has probably done as much towards making it 

 possible to raise strawberries profitably as any in this great land of 

 ours, he says : " I agree with you fully that the representative houses 

 in the various markets can sell to advantage all the berries that are 

 grown In Southwest Missouri and Northern Arkansas. The business 

 has by no means gotten beyond the capacity of the legitimate receivers, 

 but elements have crept in that are, we regret to say, most ruinous to 

 producers and receivers alike, and must, in the end, if not remedied* 



