ORGANIZATION OF PRODUCERS 109 



as much as with oranges. Where a grower has but a few 

 boxes to dehver every month there would be Httle reason 

 in summoning the picking crew, so the grower does the 

 work himself or has it done by men in his own employ. 

 In the handling of lemons there is no real problem about 

 the times of delivery. They must be picked as they mature, 

 hence there is little need for machinery compelling mem- 

 bers to deliver their pro rata share. Only when members 

 do not pick and deliver their fruit with reasonable regular- 

 ity does the association interfere in order to protect the 

 common welfare. 



Instead of being shipped as soon as possible after de- 

 livery, as are oranges, lemons are put through a more or 

 less protracted process of curing and are sometimes not 

 marketed for several months. Curing is accomplished by 

 storing the fruit under good ventilation at certain rates of 

 temperature and humidity, and is undertaken for the pur- 

 pose of bringing out the color (most lemons are picked 

 while green in color), for toughening the skin and for im- 

 proving the keeping qualities. Because of this interval 

 between picking and selling, returns on lemons are not re- 

 ceived nearly so quickly as on oranges. Also the fact that 

 the lemon trees must be picked over so much more fre- 

 quently than oranges and the fact that the fruit must be 

 cured make the unit cost of picking and packing a box of 

 lemons much higher than for a box of oranges. Therefore 

 a house that handles both fruits usually keeps separate ac- 

 counts, for it would obviously be unfair to the members 

 who grow nothing but oranges to compute a flat unit cost 

 of picking or packing by adding all costs and dividing by 

 the total number of all oranges and lemons handled. 



This whole study of picking, grading and pooling may 

 be concluded by assuming a typical case and following it 

 through the various processes. Again considering oranges 



