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fruit sent to us from the Pacific Coast. As we all know, 

 this excellent fruit is coming into every large town, compet- 

 ing with our own fruit and in many cases actually driving 

 it out. Now think for a moment how impossible it would 

 be for those Pacific Coast growers, each one acting by him- 

 self, to send their fruit far across the country in little indi- 

 vidual lots. The reason why the Pacific Coast farmers have 

 formed their co-operative organizations is the fact that ne- 

 cessity drove them to it. Few men go willingly into a form 

 of co-operation, but stern necessity compels them to do so. 

 Those western men saw that they never could enter the east- 

 ern market as individuals. Co-operation alone would give 

 them enough of a crop to make it worth while to ship ; noth- 

 ing but co-operation would enable them to make terms with 

 the carriers or to compel the buyers to come to them and 

 handle their goods. And further than that, nothing but co- 

 operation or control of the business would enable them to 

 put the guaranteed perfect pack of fruit upon the market. 

 These things have been carried out in the "West, and we see 

 the result of them in our markets today. Those men who 

 represent an organization of 500 or more men may go to 

 the buyer and state what they have to sell, and guarantee 

 each box or barrel absolutely. The buyer knows what he 

 is sure to get, and he treats those men as business people, 

 exactly as he would be obliged to treat a manufacturer. 



And strange to say, the most useful thing about such 

 co-operation is the thing which would be most galling at 

 first to the average New England fruit grower, for in a 

 co-operative enterprise the individual takes a back seat of 

 necessity. For example, if we were to form an organiza- 

 tion of 100 fruit growers of "Worcester County, we should 

 be obliged to handle them about as follows : 



When the time came for packing the fruit, the grower 

 would be notified to pick it, put it in the packing shed and 

 then let it alone, for the packing would all be done by ex- 

 perts under control of the organization. You can imagine 

 what a tempest this would create for each man would claim 

 that he knew exactly how to pack the goods yet if each one 

 of the hundred were to do his own packing there could be no 

 possible uniformity in the pack and no one could guarantee 

 what was to be sold. The only hope would be for the in- 

 dividual to leave the packing absolutely along with cold 

 blooded experts to put all the apples in barrels or boxes re- 



