179 



that association, and the selling of it, and it was done under 

 his authority and inspection. 



MR. MANN: I handle a few myself. I handled 3300 

 last year, and I defy any man to pack over three times that 

 amount and be able to guarantee what these apples are, 

 under any law, for $2 or $2000. 



DR. TWITCHELL : I don 't think he could do that. 



MR. MANN: Well, what is your guarantee worth? If 

 you are going to insi)ect the api)les properly and sell them 

 that w^ay, it will take an army of inspectors in five years, 

 and it will cost us $100,000, and the Governor would have 

 to abolish them the same as he is going to abolish the Board 

 of Agriculture. I believe every one has got to stand by his 

 own fruit; "By their fruits ye shall know them." I don't 

 believe you can cover it in any law. No man will be honest 

 anless he is willing to be, and they will all go in under our 

 own name, go to market and get through just as well as un- 

 der the name of some association. I don't believe in this 

 cooperation business, and I think I have got just as good a 

 trade as any of you in the fruit business. I ain't going to 

 jump in with the crowd and say, "I will come in with you 

 and give up my business." I don't ask anybody else to do 

 it and I don't believe in it. I have been through two or 

 three cooperative schemes in IMassachusetts, and the}^ have 

 all failed. I haven't seen one that hasn't, and this one will 

 in the end. You can 't do it. 



A MEJMBER : Cooperation is all right if it is worked 

 right, but if it isn't it will fall, and it is not the fault of the 

 thing itself. It is the fault of the individual more than the 

 scheme. We tried it in Groton. We paid in our money and 

 got left. It wasn 't worked right, that w^as the matter. The 

 men who should have been most honest sold their milk in 

 Bo.ston — this was a creamery scheme — tliey sold it in Boston 

 because they could get two cents a can more than they got at 

 the creamery. They used the creamery as a club, and in- 

 stead of using it to try to build up the cooperative creamery 

 they used it to their own advantage and the hurt of the 



