460 CALIFORNIA FRUIT SOCIETIES. 



able and solvent growers needed to pay or did pay, and more 

 than were customary in other branches of the dried-fruit 

 business. 



In the raisin industry, as in the fresh-fruit trade, serious 

 trouble brought earnest talk of cooperation. The growers 

 were exasperated beyond measure at the commission packers 

 who were serving them, and great conventions met and resolved 

 they must and would assume the marketing of their own fruit. 

 There were, however, practical difficulties. The largest grow- 

 ers, w^ho had naturally had most commercial experience, were 

 not found to work harmoniously together ; the small growers 

 had not the commercial experience or much money. With 

 the commercial experience of the large growers faithfully 

 supported by small growers, money could have been had for 

 all legitimate uses; capital was required to erect and equip 

 packing-houses, and the growers had it not,* or at least it could 

 only have been raised by a pretty uniform assessment accord- 

 ing to acreage, which was not found practicable. The han- 

 dling of raisins after they leave the sweat-box involves two 

 distinct operations not necessarily connected with each other: 

 First, the packing, which requires a packing-house with its 

 equipment, which a cooperative society can manage with 

 perfect ease; and, second, the sale of the packed product, which 

 is effected by brokers in eastern markets; and to direct this 

 well requires a certain amount of commercial training, which 

 may or may not be found available in a society. 



The result of the agitation was the formation of a number 

 of cooperative packing societies, which, with ordinary manage- 

 ment, should have nearly paid for themselves in the saving 

 of packing charges each year. In most cases, however, but a 

 small amount was paid in on stock subscriptions, and the 

 packing-house was left incumbered with all the indebtedness 

 it could be made to carry. This impaired the credit of the 

 societies, who were consequently mostly unable to obtain 



* It is really absurd, after all, to say that these growers, even indebted as 

 they were, could not have raised the necessary funds to handle their crops, if 

 they had chosen to do so. 



