50 COOPERATIVE MARKETING 



were efficient he did not lose as much as some of his less 

 efficient competitors lost. 



In the early days of the orange business when but a few 

 carloads were available for sale, consumers were sufficiently 

 eager to take all the fruit offered at prices which were 

 always attractive and sometimes highly gratifying to the 

 growers. This very profitableness of the industry was the 

 chief cause of that rapid expansion which would inevitably 

 take away the opportunity for scarcity profits. As soon 

 as citrus growing began to be looked upon as an industry 

 instead of a bonanza scheme, thoughtful orchardists began 

 to wonder where buyers were going to be found who would 

 be willing to pay enough for the fruit to cover expenses 

 and leave a profit. For it cannot be overemphasized that 

 the fixed charges in putting citrus fruits on the market are 

 higher than in almost any other agricultural industry, and 

 the chances for loss correspondingly greater. 



It would be gratuitous to assume that a California orange 

 rancher is a philosophical type of individual who reasoned 

 out on abstract grounds the benefits inherent in coopera- 

 tion. Necessity drove him to it. If buyers and commission 

 men had shown themselves able and willing to dispose of 

 the crop in a reasonably satisfactory manner the old system 

 would probably have flourished to this day, even if it could 

 be shown that certain economies might be effected through 

 cooperation. So far as buyers and commission men by 

 chicanery and attempted exploitation cut their own throats 

 through forcing the growers to organize they deserve scant 

 sympathy. However, they have incurred more obloquy and 

 invective than the facts warrant. There were certain diffi- 

 culties inherent in the marketing of citrus fruits against 

 which the buyers and packers were almost as helpless as 

 the growers. No individual or firm could possibly afford 

 to develop an information service that would give reports 



