292 RURAL CALIFORNIA 



include actual farmers as full members, non-operative 

 land owners as associate members and duly certified 

 farm laborers as affiliated members. This associa- 

 tion was reorganized in 1920 as the Federation of 

 American Farmers, looking toward organization of 

 proprietary farmers for promotion and protection of 

 their interests by political policies similar to those 

 adopted by the American Federation of Labor but to- 

 ward somewhat contrary purposes. 



SPECIAL COOPERATIVE SELLING ORGANIZATIONS 



The organizations which have attained greatest suc- 

 cess in California and have given the State a reputa- 

 tion for successful cooperation are not those which 

 undertook to associate all kinds of farmers in united 

 action and influence. They are the groups of pro- 

 ducers of particular products, the chief purpose of 

 each being to give its own product the best merchant- 

 able form and quality and to control the marketing 

 of it in its own way, in some cases through its own 

 selling agencies, in others by price fixing to the gen- 

 eral trade. Such associations now cover nearly all 

 the leading farm products and their numbers and 

 various fields of action may be learned from the list 

 of those operating in 1922, as given in Appendix J. 



Although few of these organizations existed in 

 their present form and plan of action a decade ago, 

 for most of them are much younger and all have 

 vastly increased their operations and business facili- 

 ties quite recently, nevertheless they may be looked 



