MARKETING FRUITS 
hensive in detail and efficient in execu- 
tion. 
IV. Provision for Off Grades and By- 
Products 
Most local associations would and 
should ship their best fruit in its fresh 
condition. There are often times, how- 
ever, when highest-grade fruit and most 
efficient distributive machinery can not 
overcome a dull market. Fruit growers 
will also always have more or less off- 
grade fruit. Happy is that local associa- 
tion which is equipped to can, and evap- 
orate, and make into jellies, juices, cider 
and vinegar, the fruit for which it can 
not otherwise find a profitable market. 
Some of these by-products will make a 
nice profit. Any of them will assist ma- 
terially in paying expenses of the associa- 
tion. These instrumentalities should not, 
as a rule, be considered the main proposi- 
tion They should be regarded in the 
light of insurance; insurance that you 
won’t have to throw away or give away 
your product if fresh fruit prices are not 
satisfactory; insurance that there will be 
no waste of culls; insurance that the 
local buyer will offer you a fair price, 
because he Knows that you have other 
means for disposing of your fruit. If 
most of your apples command a fancy 
price, you can afford to let your apple- 
canning machinery lie idle. If all your 
prunes are wanted fresh, you can bank 
the fires in your evaporator. 
VY. Control of Distribution by Contract 
Holders 
Safeguards should be adopted, and 
made of uniform application, whereby 
control of output and of marketing fa- 
cilities shall remain in the hands of those 
who produce the fruit marketed. Those 
local stockholders who ship no fruit 
should not be allowed to dictate through 
what channels the growers’ product shall 
be marketed, after it passes from the 
hands of the local association. Such 
stockholder is, of course, entitled to a 
reasonable return upon his stock, and to 
a voice in local management and charges. 
Beyond that he has no right. To give 
him a share in control of ultimate dis- 
tribution, at once takes the local associa- 
1267 
tion out of the list of growers’ organiza- 
tions It makes it possible for private 
interests to secure local control and there- 
by to direct distribution into channels an- 
tagonistic to the grower. 
To prevent this undesirable result, 
every local association should embody in 
its fundamental law the provision that 
“in all matters pertaining to marketing 
and affiliation, voting shall be restricted 
to members holding marketing contracts.” 
Adoption of this provision should be in- 
sisted on, before the local association is 
permitted to participate in any co-opera- 
tive central selling agency. 
VI. Freedom of Officers From Connece- 
tion With Competitors 
Chiefly aimed at the same object is 
my next fundamental, that provision 
should be made that no officer or trustee 
should be permitted to hold any office or 
position in the employ of, or to be con- 
nected with, or to own any stock in, any 
competing organization or firm. Without 
this wise and just provision, the associa- 
tion might be put to great embarrassment, 
and its plans perhaps nullified. HExcep- 
tion, of course, should be made where a 
man holds stock in another growers’ co- 
operative association. 
Vit. <A Self-Continuing Contract 
Another fundamental of co-operation is 
that every fruit-growing member of a lo- 
cal association should be required upon 
becoming a member to sign a self-contin- 
uing contract. By this I mean a contract 
whereby the grower agrees to turn over 
to the local association all his fruit, grow- 
ing and to be grown, during every year 
continuously. The contract should not be 
for the current year or for a limited 
number of years. Opportunity should, 
however, be given the grower to cancel 
the contract in any year. Otherwise the 
local association would be given an un- 
reasonable power, and it would be ditf- 
ficult to get any fruit signed up. The 
pivilege of withdrawing should, how- 
ever, be confined to a short period, and 
to such season of the year as will enable 
the local directorate to know in advance 
what they can depend on for the ensu- 
ing year. The point is covered by the 
