I ill. MONTHLY BULLETIN. 179 



We selected twenty-five trustees from differenl parts of the valley and 

 witli their aid we gained more strength and finally formed our organiza- 

 tion on .May 1. 1916. We then elected our presenl manager, Mr. Niswan- 

 der, gol some paid solicitors and have at the present ti .fs.io.ooo .sub- 

 scribed and between 85 and 90 per cenl of the acreage signed up For 

 tin 1 signing up of the acreage we se1 a certain day on which workers all 

 over the state solicited for the ue^i peach growers organization and I 

 do not think it took more than four days to sign up 60 per cent. 



Ip to thai time there bad been very little mone3 spent in getting 

 the organization together. There bad not been any monej spent until 

 May 1 when we bad our election of officers, except that spent by the 

 "four goats" as I used to call them. 1 might state right here that it 

 took some nerve to tackle this job, but thank heaven, we have made 

 a success of it. 



Formerly a little bunch of packers would get together and have a big 

 feast 1 think they had their last meeting a1 Del Monte. They spent a 

 ten days' vacation over there and set the prices before the blooms were 

 on the t rr.s and then came back home and told us farmers what we could 

 exped to receive for our peaches the next year. You could not blame 

 the packers it was the system that was wrong. They were doing the 

 gambling, the farmers were doing the irrigating, plowing and culti- 

 vating. At the end of the season they had both done their work but 

 the farmer would come ou1 al the little end of the horn. Now. see the 

 difference. The farmer brings in his peaches to the warehouse, he is 

 given a cheek for 70 per cenl rash and gets a note for 30 per cent that 

 lie can cash at any bank, or in other words, he gets $100 a ton on 

 delivery. He then eels all the balance excepting the expenses, a little 

 interest that is paid to the stockholders for furnishing the money. The 

 Eastern buyer does not pay as much for his fruit as he has done in 

 years gone by, merely because the gamble has been taken out of the 

 peach game. Our packers gol so the last two or three years that they 

 u ere afraid of each other and I do nol suppose thej even bad any 

 meetings because thej could not agree on anything, therefore our peaches 

 went so low thai the farmer could no1 raise them for the price offered. 

 As I have shown you in my table of figures it takes in the neighbor- 

 hood of $50 a ton to gel peaches ready for the market and the packers 

 en offering thai for them when we started in to organize our company. 



After the farmers had signed up their acreage and we had notes and 

 money to the amount of ahont $800,000 there were still some who said 

 we could not make a success of it. they thought we would not be able 

 to finance it. It looked sometimes to us thai to have in the neighbor- 



h I of 20,000 tons of peaches delivered to us for which we agreed to 



pay $2,000,000, our $800,000 in notes would hardly hold out, but 

 we had the confidence of the bankers, who wrote us from different 

 points in the state that they would go the limit with us, and that was 

 .some encouragemenl to work on. 1 want to state righl now that the 

 peaches are in the warehouses, the obligations have been met and we 

 are now on a firm footing, our worry is over and the I'each Association 

 is a howling success. 



That is qo1 all. We expected to sell something like 5,000 tons during 

 I), -tolier delivery, and we had figured on that amount to help pa> for 

 the peaches as they were brOUglll in. Instead of 5,000 Ions. W< liaVI 



