THE MONTHLY BULLETIN. 141 



THE FUTURE OF THE RAISIN INDUSTRY. 



By James Madison, Manager The California Associated Raisin Company. Fresno, Cal. 



Prior to 1912 we produced about 78,000 tons of raisins, and that was 

 about all the market at that time would consume, at a price of $2.4.". 

 per hundred, less than 2i cents per pound. In the year 1913 I took hold 

 of the business of the raisin growers and found there were 36,000 tons 

 of raisins in the state that could not be sold almost at any price. There 

 were hundreds of tons of those raisins sold at 1J cents per pound and 

 hard to sell at that. We got control, and started in working toward that 

 which every product of California requires, the pear industry included, 

 and that is* to market the goods properly at a reasonable price, control 

 the market, increase consumption by judicious advertising and demon- 

 strate it by special demonstrators. 



In 1914 my problem was to keep up the consumption with the pro- 

 duction. ThI' good housewife knew how to use raisins and we liberally 

 distributed our recipe books and they sent for them from far and near. 

 In the fall of 1914 we had one day 2700 letters asking for that book. 

 That helped some, perhaps, but the good housewife could not consume 

 the increase in production. So we started in educating the baker 

 to use our Muscat raisins. The bakers had never used Muscat raisins 

 before in their bakeries to any extent at least. We educated them to 

 bake raisin bread. You may not think it amounts to much when you 

 see a small baker turn out half a dozen loaves of raisin bread, but when 

 100.000,000 people are asking for raisin bread, you can not grow enough 

 raisins in California to provide for them. In 1914 we started that 

 campaign and we sold 7.300 tons. In the year 1915 we sold over 15,000 

 tons through that same channel. You remember I told you when we 

 started in in 1913 there were 36.000 tons carried over that could not be 

 marketed. We had in 1913 a crop of 75,000 tons. We had a crop in 

 1914 of 95,000 tons. We had a crop in 1915 of 130,000 tons, and every 

 pound of all those immense crops sold at good prices before the new 

 crop came in this year. 



Now. that was not, friends, because everybody spontaneously jumped 

 in and wanted raisins. We have been growing raisins for the last thirty 

 odd years and even when we produced 25,000 or 30,000 tons we could 

 not sell them and get anything for them, as our friends know. In 1914 

 I bought 1,000 tons of raisins down at Selma at 11. cents a pound and 

 lost money on them. Think of it ! 



Now, I don't want to say that our organization has been altogether 

 the cause of this, but it has been the cause of Mr. Producer's receiving 

 his just share out of this prosperity prevailing thi'oughout the country. 

 The country's prosperity has helped to consume all of our California 

 products at good prices, but the producer, unless the product is some- 

 what controlled, will not get what is his because the speculator that 

 gets himself posted throughout the world and throughout all the mar- 

 kets is the man that buys and sells, and not the farmer. 



Another thing, the way the goods are put on the market has a lot to 

 do witli their sale. The packers would buy our goods and would sell 

 them, but they are only merchants. They do the best they can to make 



