472 CALIFORNIA FRUIT SOCIETIES. 



and caring for the extra help bore heavily on the women of the 

 household. There grew up, therefore, very naturally, a class 

 of local dealers located near shipping-points and where labor 

 was available, who bought the fruit, picked and delivered at 

 their grounds, where it was dried and marketed. This had 

 the advantage to the grower of giving him his money, in full, 

 at oiice, and relieving him of the burden of securing help 

 except for picking, and it was good for the industry in that 

 the average quality of the dried product was better than if 

 dried by a hundred persons, mostly unskilled and imperfectly 

 provided with appliances. The evil of it was that the growers, 

 being at such a distance from tlie great markets, and usually 

 having to sell before the prices of the season were fully estab- 

 lished, and, moreover, being generally not well informed as to 

 the usual shrinkage in drying, were at a great disadvantage 

 with the more astute and better-informed buyers. It was also 

 true that the buyers were accustomed, at the beginning of 

 the season, to scour the district in search of growers whose 

 debts pressed them, and with whom hard bargains could be 

 driven by the temptation of a certain amount of ready cash 

 paid down; and a few sales of this kind having been made, 

 under pressure, the season's prices became pretty firmly estab- 

 lished, and it was hard to raise tliem, the result being that 

 the prices for all the crop were set by that portion of the 

 growers who were the least competent to judge of its value, or 

 insist on receiving it. Undoubtedly there was another side 

 to the question, for it often happened, especially in years of 

 short crops, that competition among buyers rapidly ran prices 

 up, with the result of serious losses to the buyers, and some- 

 times failure. In some cases the loss from failure of buyers 

 fell upon growers who sold n})on short time, intending to give 

 the buyer opportunity to dry and sell before payment. The 

 fruit dried on the farms was also largely purchased by those 

 engaged in drying, as well as by others, who visited the 

 orchards, and bought and paid for tlie fruit on delivery at 

 the packing-houses, where it was graded and sold in ear-load 

 lots to the trade. 



As a result of this system, a feeling of animosity grew up 



