AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



759 



leaving local affairs to be administered 

 by local associations. It is not the crea- 

 tion of individuals, but of the fruit- 

 growers of the State in convention as- 

 sembled. It belongs to them, and will 

 be administered by their representatives. 



It expects success by constantly in- 

 forming each grower of what it does, 

 what it wishes to do, and why. 



It attacks no class, and will injure no 

 legitimate interest. It promotes local 

 co-operation, and yet would not dis- 

 pense with the services of any living 

 person now engaged in finding customers 

 for California products. On the con- 

 trary, we wish to find work for twice as 

 many, and to have them all make money. 



We do, however, seek, and intend to 

 secure many reforms in our business 

 methods. 



We propose that each grower shall 

 know all that any buyer knows as to the 

 conditions and fluctuations of crop pros- 

 pects and markets. Then we who sell 

 will be on equal terms with those who 

 buy. 



So long as our fruits are consigned 

 East, under advances, for sale, there 

 will be absolutely no reliable cash mar- 

 ket, nor any reasonable hope of regular 

 living profits to growers. We trust soon 

 to have the influence to entirely break 

 up that practice as to all dried fruits, 

 and we hope, as to most fresh fruits. 

 We care not how many commission men 

 are employed so long as goods remain in 

 control of the grower until sold, and he 

 has opportunity in advance to accept or 

 reject the scale. 



To escape the necessity of consign- 

 ment, the grower must be made finan- 

 cially independent of his selling agent. 

 This is entirely possible, and will, we 

 think, be accomplished under the leader- 

 ship of tlie Exchange. 



The net proceeds of goods sold on com- 

 mission are trust funds. They belong to 

 the grower whose commission agent has 

 no right to their use, even for a day. 

 The grower is entitled to the date of sale 

 and name of purchaser. We shall pos- 

 sibly before long ask the growers to 

 sustain us in enforcing the general use 

 of a form of contract with commission 

 houses which will secure this to all. 



The Exchange believes that the rela- 

 tions of the growers to those whom they 

 employ to find customers for their pro- 

 ducts should be of the most cordial na- 

 ture. But it must be recognized that it 

 is the relation of the employer and em- 

 ployed. 



There will always be growers who pre- 

 fer to sell at their doors, expecting the 

 purchaser to make his profit. The more 



buyers of that kind we can have the 

 better. 



There will always be growers who 

 prefer to try the utimate market through 

 commission agents. And the more ac- 

 tive houses thus engaged in finding cus- 

 tomers for us the better. 



But the buyer and the commission 

 agent must be different persons. Few 

 men are, and none are believed to be, 

 honest enough to sell other peoples' 

 goods fairly in competition with their 

 own. When a pinch comes, and sales 

 are slow, they must push their own 

 goods, upon which ordinarily they owe 

 money, first. 



The Exchange will seek to effect a 

 complete separation between the buying 

 class and the commission class. The 

 most obvious way of reaching this end 

 is by the form of contract by which 

 those undertaking to sell goods upon 

 commission shall bind themselves not to 

 buy on their own account. 



On the other hand growers are bound 

 to deal squarely by their salesmen. If 

 they place their goods for sale with a 

 commission house, they should be held 

 to stay by them for the agreed time. If 

 a broker spends time in finding custo- 

 mers for a grower, he is entitled to 

 an agreed time to make the sale, and to 

 compensation for his effort if the grower 

 meanwhile sells otherwise. He is en- 

 titled to fair and honest samples, and to 

 compensation for sales followed by re- 

 jections for manifest inferiority of goods 

 to sample. The Exchange favors fair, 

 upright, business-like dealing every- 

 where. 



In the fresh fruit trade there is the 

 yearly experience of glutted markets 

 caused by shipments without concert of 

 twice or thrice the known capacity of 

 given markets, with possibly other 

 markets comparatively bare. There is 

 the universal belief that competing 

 houses sometimes deliberately slaughter 

 the fruit entrusted to them in efforts to 

 drive competitors from a special market. 

 We do not know this to be true, but all 

 growers believe it. 



We desire growers to insist that their 

 commission agents shall transact their 

 business wholly in the shippers' inter- 

 est, as they are paid to do ; that the 

 shippers shall agree among themselves 

 for a daily division of markets, or, fail- 

 ing that, that an authorized agent of all 

 the growers shall divide them fairly, 

 and that shippers have daily informa- 

 tion of the destination of all fresh fruit 

 leaving the State. 



The Exchange speaks in these matters 

 as the authorized representative of the 



