ORGANIZATION OF PRODUCERS 107 



will not receive full rewards for their superiority. The 

 especially fine article merely raises the average price which 

 would otherwise have been received for the fruit at the 

 lower edge of the grade, and the inferior fruit included 

 renders it impossible to obtain the full market price for the 

 superior qualities. 



Two results may follow: first, an exceptionally skilled 

 grower may become wearied of continually holding up the 

 market for careless neighbors who are willing to produce 

 inferior fruit, and the skilled grower may allow his product 

 to deteriorate to the general level. Second, a shiftless 

 grower may be content to allow the better fruit of the other 

 members of the association to hold the average prices of 

 the various grades up to a remunerative level. In either 

 case the results are unjust and injurious, for good fruit is 

 the only guarantee of a stable market, and anything that 

 tends to lower cultural standards must be condemned. 



However, there is a means of escape from the dangers. 

 If the association is composed of members of similar cul- 

 tural skill, having groves on similar soils and with similar 

 physical environment, the product will be sufficiently homo- 

 geneous to warrant assembling and marketing in common 

 without inflicting injury on any grower. Therefore it is 

 advisable for an association to include in its membership 

 only those growers whose product is essentially similar. If 

 in the same community there tend to be variations in the 

 style or quality of the fruit, as is very frequently the case, 

 it is better to organize two or more associations than to 

 attempt to pool dissimilar fruit under the same brands 

 through one organization. In actual practice there have 

 been numerous examples of a group of growers withdraw- 

 ing from one association and organizing another because 

 they were unwilling to ship their first class fruit along with 

 the poorer product of others. 



