SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA CITRUS EXCHANGES. 507 



Witli improved methods of combating the scale, and tlie 

 increased output resulting, more and more of the later plant- 

 ings came into bearing, and gradually the once prosperous 

 orange-growers began to pass through the experience of the 

 fresh deciduous fruit shippers and the raisin men already 

 described. Under a constantly falling market the packers were 

 more and more cautious about buying the crop on the trees, and 

 finally ceased buying at all, and the era of consignment set in, 

 with the same result that occurred in the deciduous fruit 

 industries; the fruit often brought less than the cost of produc- 

 tion and delivery east, and sometimes less than the freight and 

 charges alone. In no case would the product do much, if any- 

 thing, toward meeting the interest charges, or paying off mort- 

 gages; more and more the weaker growers who were largely 

 in debt for land and improvements obtained at high prices, 

 began to fall behind, and a disaster seemed imminent, which, 

 involving as it did the main industry of the country, would 

 be appalling in its results. 



In this crisis the natural thought of all was toward 

 cooperation. For this form of selling, the citrus industry was 

 far more favorably situated than the deciduous fresh fruit 

 industry; confined to one product far less perishable, and 

 bearing transportation better than most deciduous fruits, 

 reaching market in the winter, when no refrigeration was 

 required, and the market bare of other fresh fruits, the prin- 

 cipal varieties few and well known, and the method of grad- 

 ing by size, very simple, the problem of selling was far easier 

 than that of marketing any other fruit except raisins. Instead 

 of being scattered over a whole state, tlie growers were con- 

 centrated in three or four counties, and along irrigation 

 systems, where they could be reckoned up and visited; as 

 citrus fruits are only sold fresh, tiiere was no such complica- 

 tion of interests as existed between the dried and fresh 

 deciduous fruit sliipi)ers of the north ; in a word, not only was 

 the problem of selling simpler, but the work of organization 

 easier. Added to this, the larger capital required to plant and 

 mature an orange grove, together with the peculiar excitement 

 attending the development of the country, had drawn into 



