464 CALIFORNIA FRUIT ISOCIETIES. 



another the growers' necessities drove them to the commission 

 packers for advances, and the business went on as before. 

 Sometimes organizations were actually formed, but they were 

 always in the nature of a compact between the commission 

 packers and a portion of the growers, agreeing to sell raisins 

 only at prices fixed by some committee arranged for tlie pur- 

 pose. In practice the prices fixed were usually higher than 

 tlie market would bear, with the result that those outside the 

 organization sold, while those inside did not. This at once 

 resulted in pressure from the real owners of the money invested 

 in advances, applied to the commission packers, through whom 

 the advances had been made. This inevitably led to weakening 

 on the part of some party to the compact, and very soon to a 

 complete breaking up, the remainder of tlie season being occu- 

 pied in mutual accusations between the commission packers 

 in regard to who first broke the compact, and in renewed and 

 multiplied curses of the growers upon all of them; for the 

 growers could not understand that the same financial pressure 

 which compelled them to place their products for sale in the 

 hands of the commission packers, retaining no control of the 

 prices at which the goods should be sold, compelled the com- 

 mission packers to market them before the falling market 

 should jeopardize the advances. The commission packers 

 standing before the growers in the light of large capitalists, 

 apparently preferred to incur the charge of deliberate bad faith, 

 wliich was probably seldom deserved, to frankly stating that 

 they were as powerless as the growers to hold the goods. 



In this way things kept annually going from bad to worse. 

 A large portion of the growers practically gave u]) the fight 

 They would have nothing to do with cooperative packing or 

 selling, or with commission packers, if they could help it. The 

 one thought seemed to be to put down the prices of rai- 

 sins in the sweat-box to a price at which some one would 

 buy them in that condition, stay on their farms as long as they 

 were allowed to and could manage to live there, and when 

 they must, to move oflt' and begin life over again. This was 

 real distress, and it was widespread, for indebtedness was 

 general. There were some foreclosures, but they were com- 



