THE MONTHLY BULLETIN. 



473 



Avhich is simple labor, and they get it. The Japanese put a price on 

 their product, which is labor, and they get it. And the doctor and the 

 lawyer, the retailer and the wholesaler, all these people do the same 

 thing, and they get their price, and why should not the grower do the 

 same thing ? Why is he placed in a class all by himself ? "Why is it the 

 grower has got to do business entirely different from all the rest of the 

 world? It is simply because he has not reached the point where he 

 realizes that he must establish his own fee bill to be on a par with the 

 rest of the world. It has been said that if the farmers got together they 

 would corner the market and charge such enormous prices for their 

 products that people could not and would not buy, and that tlie thing 

 would go all to pieces. Now, perhaps, there is a little justification for 

 such a conclusion. Farmers sometimes have done that thing in the past, 

 but if the farmer by organization, by securing talent to look after the 

 marketing end of the fruit, by gathering information on the crops and 

 the market conditions of the world, of the available supply and probable 

 demand, if he then will carefully name what is a fair price, based upon 

 the absolute rule of equity and justice to every man connected with the 

 business, from the man who plows in the field to the man who eats the 

 stewed fruit, or has it on the table at hotels and restaurants, then there 

 will be no question about the market. 



Colonel Weinstock told me once that if a salesman came to him and 

 offered him a certain line of shoes at the price of two and a quarter 

 per pair and an agreement to maintain the market on them, or. on the 

 other hand, offered him the same shoe at a dollar seventy-five and would 

 give him no guaranty that the market would be maintained at that 

 price, that he would take the two and a quarter price every time, because 

 he would then know exactly where his competitors stood, and know that 

 a competitor could not undersell him and so destroy his business. On 

 the other hand, he would never know but that his competitors were 

 underselling him. 



Now, gentlemen, the matter of naming a price that is reasonable will 

 just so surely win among the trade of the country when it comes to dried 

 and cured fruits. The trade of the country itself is sick and tired of this 

 matter of speculation, because while sometimes it means profit, it again 

 means ruin to them, and they would gladly hear of a solution and fall 

 into line with anything that would tend to maintain a reasonable price. 

 Would not we all be far better off to get, say, six cents a pound for dried 

 peaches year in and year out, knowing a definite price was assured, a 

 price not higher than that, except in years of extremely light crops ; 

 vfould not we all be far better off than to get eight or nine cents one 

 year and four or five cents for the next five years! You never make 

 money when you produce dried peaches and sell them for four cents a 

 pound; you can just as well let somebod}^ else assume the problem for 

 you and take the profits and pay the expenses, and you go visiting. 

 You would be just as well off. When you get five cents you have got 

 just enough money coming for your labor and investment. When you 



