DRIED FRUIT AND NUT ASSOCIATIONS. 487 



and also because, while I had no connection with the move- 

 ment, I happen to be familiar with the facts. Cooperation 

 in marketing implies cooperation of persons of some means, 

 and should be begun and prosecuted on business principles. 

 The work of these southern societies has been satisfactory 

 to the membership, and their number and membership are 

 increasing. 



As these pages are being printed, there is in progress a 

 more ambitious cooperative effort than I have known of else- 

 where, in connection with marketing. This is nothing less 

 than the organization of a " Pacific Prune-growers' Associa- 

 tion," whose object is to combine under one head all the dried- 

 fruit societies which I have mentioned, together with all other 

 similar societies and all individuals engaged in the production 

 of prunes in the Pacific Coast states. The organization, as pro- 

 posed, will be almost precisely on the lines of the reorganized 

 Raisin Association, already described, and including similar 

 agreements with the private packers and commission mer- 

 chants, who are understood to be generally favorable to it, and 

 without whose cooperation it could not, at present, succeed. 

 Whether it can yet succeed with their aid is quite doubtful, 

 as the prune-growers are widely scattered over a large area 

 comprising several states, and it will be contrary to all expe- 

 rience if they can be induced to sign the necessary contracts 

 without a long and very expensive canvass, if at all. So far 

 as California alone is concerned, whose people are coming to 

 be fairly well educated in cooperation, this proposal is not 

 visionary, although it may not succeed. But the essential 

 feature of the growers' contracts is the sale of an undivided 

 twentieth (five per cent) interest in each man's crop, in con- 

 sideration of services to be performed, with absolute control, 

 as a partner, of the whole crop as soon as harvested. It will 

 be very strange if the fruit-growers of Oregon, Washington, 

 and Idaho shall be found willing, without previous instruc- 

 tion or experience in cooperation, to at once proceed to the 

 exercise of this highest development of the art. 



Among the earliest and most effective of the cooperative 

 marketing societies was that of the walnut growers. This is 



