STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 43 



unless it has the hearty support of its own stockholders. While 

 I was living- at Orono a co5perative grange store was organized 

 in Bangor. It has had a more or less prosperous existence. 

 The retail dealers of that city have succeeded in underselling the 

 cooperative store in many ways. Instead of sticking by the 

 cooperative store, and seeing it through its early struggles, men 

 of my acquaintance and stockholders too, have deserted their 

 store for the time being and have given their trade to the retail 

 man, who was really working against their own interests, in 

 order to save a very few pennies. Such tactics on the part of 

 the grain growers of the West or the fruit men of CaUfornia, 

 Colorado, or Oregon, would have killed, in the first year, those 

 organizations which we now look to as models of their kind. 



Now, as I have said before, if you are ready to accept and 

 stand by some of these fundamental principles which I have 

 mentioned, you can without much trouble organize in Maine 

 just as successful cooperative enterprises as can be found any- 

 where on this continent. 



California perhaps leads in the success of their fruit packing 

 and shipping associations. Oregon, especially the Hood River 

 region, ranks equally well. The Grand Junction Fruit Growers' 

 Association in Colorado shows remarkable growth. It began 

 business in 1897 with six hundred and sixty-six stockholders, 

 shipped one hundred and sixty-seven cars, and did eighty-eight 

 thousand nine hundred and thirty-seven dollars worth of busi- 

 ness. Ten years later, January, 1907, this association had four- 

 teen thousand one hundred and sixty-nine shares of stock, 

 shipped one thousand and thirty-six cars, and the volume of 

 business aggregated eight hundred and fourteen thousand two 

 hundred and seventy-eight dollars. Georgia and Maryland have 

 organized successfully. All of these associations publish lengthy 

 documents of instruction and rules for governing the work of 

 the packers. For detailed information of the work in these 

 states, I would refer you to Bulletin 94, Oregon Experiment Sta- 

 tion ; Bulletin 122, Colorado Station; Bulletin 18, of the Dairy 

 and Cold Storage Div., Dept. of Agriculture at Ottawa ; Bulle- 

 tin 116, of the Maryland Station; and for the latest record of 

 progress made along the lines of cooperation, to the American 

 Cooperative Journal, a monthly publication printed in Chicago. 



The Wathena Fruit Growers' Association of Missouri has 



