i in: Miivnil \ Bl i.i i:ti\. 181 



over, and il was doI an easy thing to do when we had no credil with 

 the backs and no commercial standing anywhere. We had nothing 

 inii almonds and a determination to succeed. We stayed with the 

 proposition and it was very nearly a year before we succeeded ill 

 selling the last of that crop and getting our money, but, as the gentle- 

 man said en the floor here this afternoon, we did it. We succeeded in 

 getting tin' price that we had originally set as the equitable price for 

 the growers of the state of California. We here scored our 6rs1 

 victory. 



We have been going on from that time until this, until now we have 

 twenty organizations; twenty associations in the different almond- 

 growing sections of California. The most northerly one is in Tehama 

 County and the extreme southerly one is in San Bernardino County, 

 at Banning. The almond-growing business has increased very rapidly. 

 We have seen the tonnage grow from about 1.D0O tons to 3,500 or 

 1,000 Ions. Less than one half the total planting of almonds in < ' .- 1 1 i 

 fornia is now in bearing. We anticipate that in the next five years 

 we will have possibly 10,000 tons of almonds to dispose of. That is a 

 great many almonds. It is a greal many almonds for a cooperative 

 organization to undertake to handle. 



Almonds are a luxury. We all understand that. You and I can 

 stop for a moment and see how few we consume in our own several 

 households, and we realize that when we have 10,000 tons to dispose 

 of in competition with four times that amount coming here from 

 Europe, we must do something besides produce almonds. We must 

 know how to disposi of these almonds. Each year we have endeavored 

 to post ourselves as besl we could on foreign conditions. We have 

 undertaken to find out what they are doing in Europe, and whether or 

 not they are extending the area devoted to almonds. We are trying to 

 find out how they succeed in producing their output with so little 

 expense as they do. We are trying to find out how it will be possible 

 for us to get toevther and. by better methods, produce a better almond 

 at less cost. This has been the work id' our association, and when I 

 tell you that when we began this work there were no distributing 



points outside of the great con sreial centers in the east, and that 



today the great bulk of the California almonds are being sold in small 

 towns throughout the country, you will learn that we have been 

 endeavoring to create a market. We are selling almonds in carload 

 lots in cities of not greater population than 10.000. Ten years ago 

 there was nothing of that kind known. A town of 10,000 population ten 

 years ago, if they boughl any almonds at all. bought perhaps from one 

 to five bags. That supplied their trade. 



We have endeavored to encourage the consumption of almonds by 

 introducing new- methods, and we have found, as we entered this work 

 and kept it up. that our child' competitor, who is the Spanish almond 

 -rower, has a different method of marketing his almonds from that 

 employed in California. We of California today are supplying nearly 

 all of the Eastern market with almonds in the shell — almonds as you 

 see them here in your market. Ninety-five per cent of the almonds of 

 Europe that are brought to this country are shelled almonds. Those 

 are -old to the confectioner and to the baker. There is a sale for them 



