SELLING AGENCIES 199 
of so many varieties and grades in each. The foreman 
carries out these instructions and makes a bill of lading 
to the railroad for shipment direct to the buyer or to 
the place of consignment. A copy of the bill of lading 
1s forwarded to the general manager’s office and, if the 
case happens to be a sale that is already arranged, this 
is forwarded to the agent in the city who has made the 
sale. That agent then turns over the goods upon their 
arrival to the purchaser, collects the money and returns 
it to the general manager. 
Every so often, in some cases once a week and in other 
cases once a month, these receipts are totaled up and 
the flat tax which goes to pay the expenses of the ex- 
change deducted; the balance is distributed among the 
various local exchanges. The managing officer of the lo- 
cal exchange then distributes to the individual growers 
whatever their particular brand of fruit sells for. This 
does not constitute a pooling of the fruit of different grow- 
ers, but the fruit of each individual is sold separately, 
and returns are made separately, so no one loses his 
identity in any way. It is also a fact that the local ex- 
changes do not lose their identity by combining with 
the larger organizations. For example, two labels are 
used on each package. The name of the local organization 
on one end and of the larger exchange on the other. 
Benefits of Cooperation.—Cooperative fruit-selling 
organizations have been envolved to meet a particular 
need, and while they have been instrumental in increas- 
ing the price of many different kinds of fruit to the 
producer, this has been brought about by the increase 
of the quality of the fruit, rather than by the boosting 
of the prices. In the second place, they have decreased 
