118 NEBRASKA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 



believe that the only adequate method of filling that gap is by the proper 

 organization of fruit growers' associations, properly managed. 



The day is not far distant when every fruit growing community will 

 have an association, and must have it in order to be successful. One 

 writer who has tried to ascertain the number of co-operative fruit growers' 

 associations finds there are between 250 and 300 such associations in 

 the United Sta.tes. And while the Council Bluffs Association is doing a 

 comparatively small business compared with the associations in the 

 West and Northwest, its plan of operation will nearer meet the demands 

 of the fruit growing communities of Iowa and Nebraska than some of the 

 extension associations of the Northwest where the business handled 

 amounts to millions of dollars. 



DISCUSSION. 



The Chairman: This paper is now open for discussion. If any one 

 has any questions they would like to ask, Mr. Hess is ready to answer 

 them. 



Mr. Williams: There are some points in Mr. Hess' paper that I 

 would like to see discussed, and I will state in regard to these associa- 

 tions: It is now just about twenty years this winter — I think in Janu- 

 ary — since this association was organized, and I know from my early 

 experience with it it was then at a point where it did a very small business 

 for the first few years. But it has had a gradual growth, and when you 

 think of its handling $100,000 worth of fruit last year, it shows quite a 

 growth from the early beginning. I have been thinking though of a larger 

 need for a larger association than this, that should reach out into larger 

 territory, that is to cover a territory of perhaps several states, and 

 when Mr. Hess announced his topic as the need of associatians in the 

 Missouri valley I thought perhaps he would touch upon the subject of 

 associations covering the entire Missouri valley. 



I notice this morning in reading my Western Fruit Grower from St. 

 Joseph, Missouri, the account of an association recently formed in 

 Spokane, in response to a meeting held in November, in which the four 

 great states of Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Montana, united together 

 to form a great association for the placing of their surplus apple stock and 

 others they have may. It occurs to me that some association of that 

 kind should be formed here, embracing the southeastern part of Nebraska, 

 and southwestern Iowa. Council Bluffs does well enough for it to have 

 its association, and it may well have a dozen other associations, but they 

 need larger communities so that they can work together in harmony, 

 and know where best to place their surplus fruits. As an instance of this, 

 now last fall I was up with a car of apples in South Dakota, and I went in- 

 dependent of any association, but I realized after I got up there if I had 

 had advice through some large association as to the state of that market 

 I might have been much better off. There are large towns in which I 

 might have done better than the one I went to, and then this fall I 

 shipped a carload instead of shipping out a car into my home place, Uni- 



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