THE MONTHLY BULLETIN". 



505 



thousand men to stand up for a year or term of years, financially. 

 People die, people get sick, something happens or some of the mem- 

 bers or their friends get into trouble. They may sign an agreement 

 to stand by each other for a year or two or three years, but you never 

 succeed in getting them all to stand together permanently. 



It is impossible for our groAvers to organize by themselves alone, 

 owing to local conditions and the difficulties they have met with. In 

 the old organizations there was much dissatisfaction, with the result 

 that some would drop out, leaving those in the association carrying 

 a bigger load than they were able to carry. 



Gradually we came to see that something different had to be done. 

 We had to devise some new plan. In turning over in my mind the 

 experience of other lines of business, it came to me by degrees that we 

 ought to have a "California Raisin Exchange," on the grain, butter, 

 corn and cotton exchange plan. The idea at the bottom of that plan is 

 that any two people, buyer and seller, can come together at any time at 

 a placed commonly called "The Exchange," or the "Board of Trade," 

 and transact their business. The moment they come together on a price, 

 that makes the market price for that instant, and a large number of 

 people doing business through the day establish the market price for 

 that day. They do not "sign up" anything. One simply sells and the 

 other buys. Examining the practical w^orking of that system, we fmd 

 that all over the world, from the Board of Trade at Chicago, the Cotton 

 Exchange at New York to the Tea Exchange at Bombay, India, such 

 exchanges are established, and also become centers for collecting and 

 publishing information. They become, so to speak, crop report bureaus, 

 and either the members exclusively, or the general public, receive all 

 the information possible to collect ; and so it is to be with our Raisin 

 Exchange. All the information we can collect is to be distributed 

 broadcast, that our raisin growers may Imow what is going on all over 

 the world. Then they can keep themselves informed and up-to-date in 

 all particulars. By lookiiig in the morning daily papers they will see 

 the transactions of the day before, the buying and selling, the highest 

 price, the lowest price, the average, and the total sales. 



We are anxious to have our own raisin trade paper, and the exchange 

 proposes to start one as soon as possible, to start it right, AVe need a 

 trade paper besides the daily papers, to give the growers throughout 

 this country accurate and full information. The way things are now it 

 is impossible to get accurate ideas of prices. We will gather up all the 

 crop news, weather information in foreign countries, prices, and all 

 that, and the grower will then have this information in a concise, read- 

 able form, as quick as it can be got to him. 



There are reported to be in the United States from three to five thou- 

 sand wholesale grocery .jobbing houses. One in Chicago employs a 

 hundred and forty-five traveling salesmen; another in New York has 

 about two hundred. There are several thousand traveling grocery sales- 

 men on the road every day, carrying around and giving out all informa- 



