THE MONTHLY BULLETIN. 



481 



foi^nia—that will produce within five years a hundred and forty thou- 

 sand acres of deciduous fruit per year for the market. Just think of 

 that. What are we going to do if we do not wake up and stand 

 together, and attempt bringing the producer and consumer closer to- 

 gether and get a profitable price for the producer and cut down the 

 cost to the consumer ? By doing that we will increase the consumption 

 wonderfully. As I understand it, some twenty years ago the orange 

 market, with four thousand cars a year, was absolutely glutted and 

 oranges went begging everywhere. Well, they organized, and last year 

 marketed about fifty thousand ears at a profit. Is there any benefit in 

 organization? Sure. Now, the work of the fresh fruit shipping in- 

 terests can be handled much in the same way. They must take hold of 

 the matter and must have a better method for the distribution of the 

 fruit, getting it closer to the consumer, and the work that this Railroad 

 Rate Committee is doing is tending in that direction. If they can get 

 the minimum carload rate reduced, then they can put carloads of fruit 

 into many additional cities in the country where they cannot get them 

 now, because the carloads are too large and the fruit spoils. In that way 

 it will benefit the growers. I cannot see anything encouraging, for a 

 few years hence, in the fresh fruit shipping business, unless the matter 

 of organization for better distribution and marketing is pushed to a very 

 great" extent. On the other hand, there will be such a tremendous 

 amount of fruit that might be shipped in a fresh state, but won't 

 because of the low market prices that will prevail, and this fruit will be 

 dried and it will be thrown on the market as dried fruit ; and here, for 

 our very protection, for our life commercially, we have got to organize 

 and ex-tend the market. Now, just as an illustration of what this may 

 mean : One of our growers went into a retail store in Oakland about 

 four weeks ago with his daughter. She was married and lived in 

 Oakland. He said to her, "Why don't you buy dried fruit? It would 

 help us out very much. ' ' She turned to the grocer and asked the price 

 of prunes. At that time the grower was being offered a price that would 

 mean 2i cents per pound for that class of fruit. The peaches that were 

 being offered for sale were such that it would require but little stretch 

 of the imagination to consider them first-class. Peaches at that time 

 were bringing 3J and 4 f^ents a pound for the grower. She said to the 

 grocer. ' ' How much are peiiches worth ? " " Twenty cents a pound, ' ' he 

 said. "How much are prunes?" "Fifteen cents," the grocer replied. 

 She turned to her father. "You have got my answer. I do not want 

 fruit at that price." It is estimated that there w^ere about fifty million 

 pounds of cured fruit carried over last year into this year for consump- 

 tion. Little of this was in the hands of the trade, none in the hands 

 of the growers, and mostly all in the hands of the retailers. Now, owing 

 to the jugglery with prices last year and speculation, the prices of these 

 fruits were pushed way up so that the consumer had to pay so much 

 for them. They were stale, old, and didn't taste good, and no one 

 wanted to buy them. When the 1912 crop of prunes was ready to move, 



9— HB 



