Marketing and Storage 321 



be legally binding. It is obvious that no well-organized 

 selling system can be developed unless the management 

 knows approximately the amount of tonnage which it will 

 be called on to handle. 



Pooling. 



The practice of pooling the fruit of different members 

 of an association and selling it under one brand has devel- 

 oped widely in the West. Uniformity in the quality of 

 the fruit in each pool is an absolute necessity to the suc- 

 cessful operation of such a system; otherwise the poor 

 fruit will bring down the price of the good and result in 

 dissatisfaction among members. In other words, the most 

 successful pools can only be brought about when the fruit 

 of the contributing members has been grown with similar 

 cultural methods and under similar climatic and soil 

 conditions. 



The only criticism which may be brought against pool- 

 ing is that it may penalize the grower of exceptionally 

 fine fruit. This may be avoided, however, if careful grad- 

 ing rules are adopted and unbiased inspection is enforced. 

 Under a successfully operated pool, the grade of all fruit 

 may be raised rather than lowered, thus insuring the high- 

 est market price. Another distinct advantage under the 

 pooling system is in the protection which it affords an 

 individual grower against the sudden rise or fall in prices. 

 One shipment of fruit may be damaged in shipment, or 

 may be sold at a figure lower than later market prices. 

 This loss distributed over a large membership would not 

 be felt, but with an individual it might be disastrous. All 

 fruit cannot be placed on the market at the same time 



