THE POULTRY PRODUCING COMMUNITY 
enterprise and good enough business sense to run the propo- 
sition as efficiently as similar private enterprises arerun. The 
idea that co-operation must always result in a big saving is 
a misconception. Employes will not work any harder for an 
association than for a private employer, sometimes not as 
hard. Certainly no employe will work as hard for an associa- 
tion as he will for himself. 
Why people should expect to buy out the grocery store and 
hire the grocer to run it and save money for themselves, is a 
thing I could never understand. But if there is some great 
waste that co-operation will prevent, as where seven milk 
wagons drive every morning over the same route, or where 
the market of perishable crops is glutted one day and starved 
the next, centralization, corporate or co-operate, will pay. 
I know of no better way to impress the reader with Ameri- 
can co-operation in actual practice than to quote from a brief 
account of the California Fruit Growers’ Exchange. 
The Exchange was founded upon the theory that every 
member is entitled to furnish his pro rata of the rruit for ship- 
ment through his association, and every association to its pro 
rata to the various markets of the country. This theory re- 
duced to practice gives every grower his fair share, and the 
average price of all markets throughout the season. 
Another cardinal provision of the plan was that all fruit 
should be marketed on a level basis of actual cost, with all 
books and accounts open for inspection at the pleasure of the 
members. These broad principles of full co-operation constitute 
the basis of the Exchange movement. 
The Exchange system is simple, but quite democratic. The 
local association consists of a number of growers contiguously 
situated, who unite themselves for the purpose of preparing 
their fruit for market on a co-operative basis. They establish 
their own brands, make such rules as they may agree upon for 
grading, packing and pooling their fruit. Usually these asso- 
ciations own thoroughly equipped packing houses. 
All members are given a like privilege to pick and deliver 
fruit to the packing house, where it is weighed in and properly 
receipted for. Every grower’s fruit is separated into different 
grades, according to quality, and usually thereafter it goes into 
the common pool, and in due course takes its percentage of 
the returns according to grade. 
39 
