82 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY, 
It is a commercial fact that competition cheapens prices without 
increasing consumption beyond the natural increase that follows 
cheaper prices. There is not acommercial fruit grower of any ex- 
perience in the country but who knows that frequently during the 
shipping season a lot of small fruit would have gone info consump- 
tion at more money than was realized but forthe useless home com- 
petition and improper distribution that cut prices below the cost of 
production. This is proved every season and is particularly true of 
the smaller towns where comparatively few people engage in the 
production of small fruits. It is this competition we hear spoken 
ofas “ruinous competition” that has driven the most experienced 
and ablest men of the day into combining and organizing, not from 
choice, but from necessity, to avoid competing with one another. 
The sugar refiners, the lumber manufacturers, the millers, in fact, 
nearly all branches of industry are now organized, simply because 
each tried to undersell the other, to get trade without increasing 
consumption. It has been demonstrated through a fruit growers 
association at Ripon, which has been in existence four years, that 
an organization ‘through a course of inspection has a tendency to 
raise the standard of the fruit, systematize the business, reduce 
freight and express rates, and the grower can devote his whole time 
to getting his fruit in the best possible condition for the markets 
and thereby receive the greatest margin of profit. 
Co-operation and the avoidance of competition is the order of the 
day everywhere. Everything is organized. Artisans, mechanics, 
laborers of every class and in all departments are organized for 
self-protection, to avoid competition, and act as a unit in all matters 
that pertain to their interests. 
We believe in a progressive age and keeping abreast with the 
times, and we believe it is the duty of all fruit growers, as well asa 
necessity, to organize their shipping associations in a business-like 
manner,and so systematize their shipping as to avoid putting their 
products into competition with each other,and thus get a satis- 
factory and legitimate margin of profit. Fruitmen can certainly do 
this to their own advantage. By association and an interchange of 
views as to quantity, quality, and demand for fruit ina certain 
market it can be ascertained with approximate accuracy; and the 
fruit grower is thus enabled to lay his plans as regards varieties 
from the knowledge thus acquired. 
Small fruit growing is a business in which location and con- 
venient and rapid transportation are also essential elements of suc- 
cess. All engaged in it have a mutual interest in acquiring and 
availing themselves of all the knowledge attainable for growing, 
handling and marketing their products. 
In all that pertains to horticultural development, the improve- 
ment of public grounds, the adornment of private property, the 
growing of fruits, by co-operation we work together in greater 
harmony, and more intelligently. 
(See constitution, etc., of Fruit Growers’ Association of Ripon, 
Wis., following). 
