ORGANIZATION OF PRODUCERS loi 



progressive business, the association aspires to win and 

 hold attention to these brands. For that reason the quahty 

 in each brand is made as uniform and reliable as possible. 

 The brands are the property of the association, and cannot 

 be used without its sanction. More than once it has oc- 

 curred that an association has felt that it could not compro- 

 mise its reputation by shipping under the regular brands 

 fruit slightly below par, but still merchantable, so it has 

 adopted temporary labels not showing the association name 

 and has thus sold its output without tarnishing its good 

 repute with the trade. Recently quite a controversy has 

 arisen over the matter of brands, but this may^best be con- 

 sidered with the discussion of the achievements of the ex- 

 change system. 



All through this chapter passing references have been 

 made to pools. We must now turn to the purpose of these 

 pools, their organization, their effect on the whole coopera- 

 tive structure. For pooling is without question one of the 

 essentials of the exchange system. In the first place, why 

 should there be any pools at all ? Or why not have one gen- 

 eral pool instead of several ? It is entirely conceivable that 

 each member's fruit be kept distinct, be packed and sold 

 on individual account, and the actual proceeds obtained for 

 his particular fruit be returned to him. In fact, this used 

 to be done somewhat extensively. Now, however, a grow- 

 er's fruit ordinarily loses its identity after it has been 

 graded and weighed. 



Generally speaking, pooling is an insurance measure, and 

 the policy of several pools rather than one is a measure 

 of administrative convenience. The cooperative principle 

 would lose much of its significance if it did not include the 

 distribution of risk. Under the system of consigning or 

 selling to packers the individual account method was tried 

 thoroughly, and was proved a failure. If the prices that 



