482 THE MONTHLY BULLETIN. 



the retailers had this year's prices and a set of last year's on hand, and 

 they said to the consumer, "You pay us our price for these prunes that 

 we have carried over from last year, so that we do not lose our money 

 on them, or we do not buy a pound of 1912 crop." That reminds me 

 that when I was a little boy my parents at one time held me and made 

 me take castor oil. I have never liked it since. 



When the California Cured Fruit Exchange is in operation, in a year 

 or two, I believe it will be in position, if anything of that kind comes up, 

 to go right into the market and say, "If you don't put prices down 

 where they will bring a reasonable profit to the grower, we will put a 

 store right in here at once, and we will offer this fruit to the trade at 

 reasonable prices," and we will until they do differently. 



Mr. Nutting. Several of the members of our raisin exchange here 

 have suggested that I ought to put in a word at this time. There are 

 some believing that possibly the Dried Fruit Exchange which :\Ir. Dar- 

 gitz has been speaking of might antagonize more or less the raisin 

 exchange. Now, to state my position in that matter clearly, I will say 

 that the telegram sent to Mr. Dargitz asking him to come here and state 

 his proposition was written on my desk. The cured fruit business is 

 very large, and I had no idea how large it was, or that it was as large as 

 Mr. Dargitz says — 140.000 cars for this coast. Why, when ^Ir. Dargitz 

 was speaking on the Almond Growers' Exchange a few years ago, that 

 they would have 115 cars, I thought our raisin business of five and 

 seven thousand cars was large compared with the almond business, and 

 now the dried fruit business, estimated at 140,000 — why, the raisin 

 business looks very small in comparison. I want to say again, that it 

 was at my suggestion and informal invitation that Mr. Dargitz came 

 here to present this plan of his. We want to do all Ave can to help it 

 along, and I want to state that it will not conflict with our raisin 

 exchange in the least — our interests are totally separate — but the dried 

 fruit exchange for the whole State can go on and do a dried fruit busi- 

 ness, get into shape, and it is going to be an immense thing, this plan of 

 Mr. Dargitz, and I wish him success. 



Mr. Aaronsohn. I must apologize for talking so much at these meet- 

 ings of yours, but I am very much interested. I do not want to encroach 

 upon your time, but I would like to tell you how, in Palestine, where we 

 have such great natural resources, we suffer through lack of organiza- 

 tion in the citrus businass, and it is only in the last two or three years 

 that we have tried to organize, and immediately the men who were in 

 this organization began to feel the benefits and the good results of this 

 co-operative work. Mr. Dargitz asked, a little while ago, if co-operation 

 was worth while. There can be no doubt in any of us but that it is 

 worth while. 



Chairman Cook. We will now have an address by Prof. F. T. 

 Bioletti, subject, "Increasing Returns of JMuscat Vineyards." 



