472 THE MONTHLY BULLETIN. 



that the growers in many cases have been forced to wake up and take 

 some steps toward adjusting the matter. What would you think of a 

 man who never played a game of cards in his life, and who could not 

 toll the names of more than three or four cards in the deck, that should 

 attempt to go to a table and play cards for money with men who had 

 had years of experience in gambling? Well, they would have him tied 

 hand and foot. That is an illustration of where the fruit grower now 

 stands, giving absolutely no time or thought to the determining of w^hat 

 he should have for his efforts and the product of his labor, and how he 

 is going to get it. On the other hand, is a band of men who have, for 

 several thousand years, been sharpening their wits in attempting to 

 get the best of everything in trade, and they come and make a bargain 

 with the fruit grower for his fruit. What chance has he ? How can he 

 hold his own ? He simply cannot, and he has to take what the other has 

 a mind to give. Unless the fruit growers will organize and by organiza- 

 tion put the marketing of their fruit in the hands of some one who is 

 qualified in a measure, at least, to meet these others on their own 

 ground and on a fair basis, they will fail utterly. To succeed they must 

 organize and then they can thresh it out ; then there is some possibility 

 of the grower getting what he ought to have for the product of his 

 labor. Nothing in the world but organization will do it. 



We heard Dr. Powell tell us last evening something about the 

 orange and lemon business and how the growers of these products had 

 combined and were able to market their fruit without involving specula- 

 tion, and on the other hand he called attention to the fact that the lemons 

 produced in Europe are handled on a purely speculative basis and so 

 marketed. Do you know that the cured fruits, that is, raisins, prunes, 

 peaches and apricots, and everything that is dried in that way, have 

 been marketed up to the present moment on a purely speculative basis ? 

 Now, I am not here to condemn particularly the packers, because I am 

 inclined to think that some packers at least are white men, who would 

 be inclined to pay the grower all they can and be safe themselves. But 

 let us suppose that one of these packers is named Smith, and Jones is 

 another, and that Smith wants to do his best for the grower, and that 

 Jones wants to do the best he can for Jones. Now what is the result 

 under conditions purely speculative ? Smith sends his buyers out to buy 

 fruit, paying fairly good prices for it. Jones sends his buyers out, 

 instructing them to buy at the lowest possible price, and to buy looking 

 out solely for Jones. Don 't you see that Smith, no matter wliat his good 

 intentions are, is forced to do exactly the same thing that Jones does, 

 otherwise, Jones paying far less for his fruit than does Smith, can go 

 out to the trade and undersell him. Therefore, in speculative buying 

 and handling, no matter how honest a packer may be, he is absolutely 

 forced to fight for his own life by buying the fruit from the grower at 

 the lowest possible notch that he can get the grower to take for it. It 

 is all wrong; it should be turned around and the grower should put a 

 price upon his product. The hodcarriers put a price on their produ^t^ 



