BENEFITS OF COOPERATION i8i 



It is the duty of the district manager to advise his asso- 

 ciations about the most advantageous times and places to 

 ship, and about the varieties and sizes in demand; also to 

 emphasize the necessity of regular and prolonged distribu- 

 tion as the only basis of scientific marketing. He must 

 show the association managers that undue delay in ship- 

 ments leads only to such a disastrous slump as occurred at 

 Sthe close of the 1908-09 season. Yet in every fruit year 

 there are periods which average much higher than others, 

 and naturally each association manager wants to serve his 

 growers by having his own shipments heavy in the strong 

 markets and light in the weak markets. Nevertheless, 

 yielding to this temptation leads to the old time speculative, 

 ichaotic shipments in place of the present system of sta- 

 bilized shipments on a merchandizing basis. 



Though the district exchanges do and should exercise 

 a directive influence over the associations, the California 

 Fruit Growers Exchange, neither through its manager and 

 its agents nor in any other manner attempts to control 

 shipments or prices. The central exchange and its repre- 

 sentatives do their full duty when they carry out the orders 

 of the shippers efficiently and furnish the information that 

 makes it possible for the orders to be rational. If all of 

 the shippers should forward their whole output on a given 

 day to the agent, say, at Chicago with orders to sell for 

 what he could get for the cars, he could do nothing but 

 comply, though undoubtedly his daily reports on the mar- 

 keting outlook at Chicago would be gloomy. However, 

 it is to avoid such contingencies as the one suggested that 

 the market reporting service through agents and inspectors 

 has been developed. Each manager knows the whereabouts 

 of every exchange car and to what market it is billed ; hence 

 so far as the exchange itself is concerned, distribution may 

 be almost completely regularized. 



