32 BULLETIN 547, U. S. DEPARTMENT OP AGRICULTURE. 



for selling the products now manufactured. Two of the central 

 selling companies now operating are described in detail elsewhere in 

 this report. 



FRUIT AND PRODUCE MARKETING ASSOCIATIONS. 



Number and location. — The 871 fruit and produce associations 

 that reported have a much wider distribution throughout the country 

 than any other class of cooperative enterprise, 42 States having one 

 or more of these farmers' companies as shown in Table I. (See also 

 Chart 11.) The leading States, and the number reporting from each, 

 are California 124, Arkansas 63, Florida 55, Washington 52, Oregon 

 40, Louisiana 34, Missouri 34, New York 32 and Texas 31. In Cali- 

 fornia and Florida organizations of citrus-fruit growers are the leading 

 types; in the North Pacific States the apple growers' organizations 

 predominate, and the organizations vary in the other regions of 

 the country according to the principal kinds of fruit and produce 

 raised in commercial quantities. 



Plan of organization.— Of the fruit and produce associations, 307 

 reported operating on the capital stock company plan while 504 

 reported the cooperative method. Thus compared with elevators, a 

 considerably larger proportion of the fruit and produce companies 

 follow the cooperative method, while the proportion is somewhat 

 smaller than in the case of creameries and cheese factories. 



There is a general trend among cooperative fruit and vegetable 

 marketing concerns toward centralized selling and unity of action in 

 matters of mutual interest other than selling. This is accomplished 

 by the federation of small local assembling associations into district 

 organizations; these in turn operate through a central selling agency. 

 In some cases the district or local associations federate for gathering 

 crop and market information and for accomplishing other work 

 which is impracticable for individual associations, but each retains its 

 sales machinery and sales policy. The central sales policy is in 

 operation among the citrus growers of Florida and California and 

 the walnut and almond growers of California, and has from time to 

 time gamed and lost in favor among associations in the Pacific 

 Northwest. The plan of federation for gathering information and 

 perfecting better distribution has been used by numerous cooperative 

 and independent companies in vegetable districts in handling un- 

 usually heavy crops. 



A history of the cooperative movement in many of the fruit and 

 produce districts would show numerous experiments and a rise and 

 fall in the support of the organization from one year to another. 

 Practically all new districts pass through the same general experi- 

 ence as that through which the older organizations passed; conse- 

 quently, the most successful cooperative fruit and vegetable market- 

 ing concerns are usually found in districts where these associations 



