1/6 COOPERATIVE MARKETING 



by what routes. Every morning the history of the car 

 during the previous day is available, and this information 

 is immediately transferred to that car's special card. The 

 sales managers of the California Fruit Growers Exchange 

 can know at a glance an)^hing they wish about any car of 

 the entire exchange system. And at the busy season the 

 exchange has rolling or on track toward 2,000 cars a day. 

 Only the history cards for the cars of his member associa- 

 tions are kept by the district exchange manager, though 

 the information for all the cars of the system is available 

 in the bulletins, and a manager who wants to know the 

 whereabouts or condition or prices of cars of competing 

 managers has only to take the little extra time necessary 

 to find this data in the bulletins. 



The Exchange bulletin appears as a series of statements 

 and, taken as a whole, is quite a complex affair. One state- 

 ment gives all the exchange shipments from California for 

 the preceding day, including all the points that have been 

 mentioned as appearing on the history cards. Another 

 statement gives all of the telegrams which came through 

 the central exchange during the preceding day. For it 

 must be remembered that the California Fruit Growers 

 Exchange as such has no fruit to sell, and questions about 

 the acceptance or rejection of prices, the consummation of 

 sales and the conditions of markets are of interest only to 

 the associations and district exchanges that do have fruit 

 to sell. But agents of the California Fruit Growers Ex- 

 change must act for all shippers, hence agents are not al- 

 lowed to communicate directly with associations or district 

 exchanges, but must send all their messages through the 

 central exchange. Then these messages are the common 

 property of all exchange members. In this manner agents 

 iare effectually precluded from showing favoritism to any 

 shipper, a thing which might easily happen, and one certain 



