556 AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS 



in mind, along the lines of remedying existing marketing evils, lies, 

 among other lines, in the utilization on the one hand of existing 

 machinery for the distribution of farm products and, on the other 

 hand, to aiding and directing the producers scientifically to do their 

 own marketing. The state will have performed its highest function, 

 in my opinion, when it will have aided the producer to help himself. 



What better object-lesson is needed to show the evil results of a 

 lack of organization and the beneficent results of organization than 

 is presented by the California raisin industry? Only a few brief 

 years ago the grower was obliged to sell at as low as one and a half 

 cents a pound, which, of course, meant ultimate ruin. By perfecting 

 a selling organization, he is now receiving between three and four 

 cents a pound, which means a living price and all that a living price 

 spells. The California citrus industry presents perhaps the most 

 remarkable object-lesson of the benefits of collective action, but 

 there must be collective action, not alone on the part of 60 per 

 cent of the producers, as now in the citrus industry, but on the part 

 of producers of 100 per cent of the product. It should be one of the 

 aims of the Market Director to bring about such collective action on 

 the part of the 100 per cent of the producers, and to this end I now 

 dedicate myself. Even though such result may be unattainable, it 

 is certainly worthy of most earnest effort, because the success of such 

 effort means the salvation of the industry. 



There are two distinct markets for the farm products of California: 

 the market hi California, which may well be called the "home" 

 market; and the market outside of California, which may be called 

 the "eastern" market. The records show that the home market con- 

 sumes only about 5 per cent of the farm products of the state, the 

 remaining 95 per cent being consumed outside of the state. It must, 

 therefore, be plain that the situation which should command first 

 attention is the eastern market; since it is not possible for any one 

 market director to cover all the territory for all the products as speedily 

 as all the producers would like to have it covered, it is evident that a 

 great deal of patience and forbearance will have to be exercised on the 

 part of many of the producers, until their time shall have arrived. 

 It is my intention to concentrate upon such products as are chiefly 

 marketed in the East that most need attention such, for example, 

 as the dried peach product, the olive product, and the citrus products. 

 After carefully surveying the ground and after thoroughly familiarizing 

 myself with eastern marketing conditions (which I am now engaged 



