74 COOPERATIVE MARKETING 



fruit cannot be expected to have the best reputation- on the 

 market, so the foot hill growers may be unwilling to let 

 their uninjured fruit be sold through an organization with 

 a compromised reputation. Hence they organize a house 

 of their own and seek to establish a name for perfect goods. 

 Let us assume that they succeed and that preference on the 

 market is given to fruit from their house. Their packing 

 house may adjoin that of the original association which 

 formerly packed for the whole region. Hence it is as con- 

 venient for any grower in the whole region to deliver to 

 the new house as to the old. Obviously the result would 

 be that growers would try to join the new associa'tion in 

 order to share in the better prices unless the directors of 

 that association had the power to draw a certain fixed line 

 below which there was danger of frost and say that only 

 growers above that line were eligible for membership in the 

 new organization. 



With reference to the annual meetings, it is only neces- 

 sary to note that the rules are quite free from technicalities. 

 Proxies are allowed, though an association usually makes 

 the utmost effort to have all the members present. Special 

 meetings are easily called, though they are rare, and a 

 provision more interesting than important is that which 

 states that at any regular or special meeting any director 

 or all of them may be recalled by a majority of all votes 

 in the association and their places immediately filled. That 

 is, if a majority of the members becomes convinced that 

 the directors are not properly handling the business of the 

 association, all that is necessary is to call a special meeting 

 and turn the offenders out. 



The annual meeting of the association is a semi-festal 

 occasion for the citrus community. It is an open forum 

 with everybody welcc«ne. Beginning at 9 or 9:30 o'clock 

 in the morning it sometimes continues till late in the after- 



