SPECIAL FRUIT ORGANIZATIONS 995 
the business were constantly looking for means to elim- 
inate or at least simplify the trouble of selling. 
The first step towards the organization of a central 
selling agency of Northwestern fruit was taken at the 
meeting in Prosser, Wash., in January, 1911, and com- 
mittees made up of representatives of the different fruit 
districts worked in conjunction with the only cooper- 
ative non-profit fruit organization then in existence in 
the Northwest; namely, the Yakima Valley Fruit 
Growers’ Association. They worked out a set of by- 
laws at a series of meetings held in the fall of 1911 and 
the spring of 1912. These different plans as worked out 
at these meetings were brought to Spokane in November, 
1912, during the National Apple Show, at which time 
the distributors were organized. This is a purely mutual 
corporation without capital stock, organized under the 
non-profit sharing laws of the State of Washington. 
The association now comprises nine central exchanges, 
composed of nearly 100 local associations which in turn 
are made up of over 7,000 members, all fruit growers. 
The Board of Directors consists of nine members, one 
from each of the central exchanges. 
The first step this selling organization took was to 
draft a set of rules for all the local associations to grade 
and pack their fruit by. This immediately unified all the 
grades and packs of fruit and permitted a guarantee of 
standard packs. The carrying out of this part of the 
work was left to the various producing organizations. 
Inspectors were maintained by the distributors to keep 
the grades and packs up to standard. The second step 
was to organize a selling force that could handle the large 
output. This was done by establishing agents in the 
