Missouri State Board of Horticulture. 377 



member to join pays $10, which makes him a member for life. 

 He is now supposed to ship all his fruit through the association, 

 and if he does not do so his dividends may be forfeited at the 

 discretion of the board of directors. 



I will now try to make the workings of the association 

 clear by following a growers' fruit and the bookkeeping thereon 

 through from the beginning. 



A member's load of fruit is driven into the warehouse, to 

 the cars that are being loaded. The fruit must be up to a 

 certain standard. If it is grapes, the baskets must weigh 8 

 pounds; the appearance must be first class; berry boxes must 

 be full, etc. It is inspected as it is unloaded, and as each 

 package must bear the grower's name and address beside the 

 stamp of the association, it is not difficult to trace back fruit of 

 poor quality to the grower, even if it should get by the in- 

 spector at the car. 



The driver is now given a receipt showing the amount of 

 the load, also the date and car number if a car is being loaded 

 direct. A duplicate of this receipt remains in the book, which 

 that evening is turned in to the bookkeeper. The bookkeeper 

 enters this into a book called the "pool book." This book 

 has a page for each day divided into columns — a double column 

 for each kind of fruit. In the first column is entered the grow- 

 er's name, the number of packages of his fruit and later on his 

 share of the pool for the day. The second column contains the 

 names of the firms buying the fruit, the number of packages 

 each took and the amount paid for it. The number of pack- 

 ages of fruit in the two columns must balance and the sum of 

 the amounts paid for the fruit divided by the total number of 

 packages is the pool on that fruit for the day. That is the aver- 

 age price received for one package of the fruit for the day. This 

 is multiplied by the number of packages credited each grower 

 and placed after his name in the first column. The cash amounts 

 in the two columns must now balance. 



Before leaving the subject of "the pool" I want to say that 

 a grower whose fruit falls below the association standard does 

 not share in the pool for the day, but is credited with just what 

 his fruit may bring. 



The next book is a ledger. Each grower has a page on 

 which each day the date, the number of packages of his fruit, 

 the price, gross sales, the commission, icing charge and net 

 amount are put down in columns for that purpose. 



