SPECIAL FRUIT ORGANIZATIONS 225 



the business were constantly looking for means to elim- 

 inate or at least simplify the trouble of selling. 



The first step towards the organization of a central 

 selling agency of Northwestern fruit was taken at the 

 meeting in Prosser, "Wash., in January, 1911, and com- 

 mittees made up of representatives of the different fruit 

 districts worked in conjunction with the only cooper- 

 ative non-profit fruit organization then in existence in 

 the Northwest; namely, the Yakima Valley Fruit 

 Growers' Association. They worked out a set of by- 

 laws at a series of meetings held in the fall of 1911 and 

 the spring of 1912. These different plans as worked out 

 at these meetings were brought to Spokane in November, 

 1912, during the National Apple Show, at which time 

 the distributors were organized. This is a purely mutual 

 corporation without capital stock, organized under the 

 non-profit sharing laws of the State of Washington. 

 The association now comprises nine central exchanges, 

 composed of nearly 100 local associations which in turn 

 are made up of over 7,000 members, all fruit growers. 

 The Board of Directors consists of nine members, one 

 from each of the central exchanges. 



The first step this selling organization took was to 

 draft a set of rules for all the local associations to grade 

 and pack their fruit by. This immediately unified all the 

 grades and packs of fruit and permitted a guarantee of 

 standard packs. The carrying out of this part of the 

 work was left to the various producing organizations. 

 Inspectors were maintained by the distributors to keep 

 the grades and packs up to standard. The second step 

 was to organize a selling force that could handle the large 

 output. This was done by establishing agents in the 



