MARKETING FRUITS—CO-OPERATION 
handling farm products, greater agricul- 
tural prosperity, better rural citizenship 
and social life, is a successful associa- 
tion of farmers themselves, formed to se- 
cure better distribution of their products. 
In a community having such an asso- 
ciation in successful operation, it is un- 
necessary to raise the cry “back to the 
land.” Every one who can afford it gets 
back, without waiting to have a pry ap- 
plied to him. If some of our well-mean- 
ing friends would devote a part of their 
energies to urging upon farmers the nec- 
essity and advantages of co-operative or- 
ganization, instead of side-stepping the 
question lest they disturb the equanim- 
ity of local middlemen, they would be 
reaching their object by the most direct 
and effective means. If our enterprising 
agricultural colleges would take up the 
question of co-operation among farmers, 
their students might return to the coun- 
try with some sympathy for, and knowl- 
edge of, the best means of upbuilding 
their fathers’ business and improving 
its environment. 
[Since the preparation of this article 
the “North Pacific Fruit Distributors” 
has been organized, making the largest 
central selling agency in the Northwest. 
——Ed.] 
CO-OPERATION IN THE HANDLING 
AND MARKETING OF FRUIT 
The handling and marketing of crops 
through co-operative associations is more 
highly developed in fruit growing than 
in any other agricultural industry in 
America. These organizations are formed 
to purchase the supplies used in the 
production and marketing of the crops, 
to standardize the harvesting, handling, 
grading, and packing of the fruit, to sell 
the fruit of the members as a unit under 
whatever system of marketing is adopted, 
to prevent disastrous competition by 
bringing about an equitable distribution 
throughout the country, and to handle the 
fruit business in other ways collective- 
ly rather than individually whenever it 
can be done more economically and ef- 
fectively. There are several hundred of 
these associations among the fruit grow- 
ers of the Western states and a number 
1278 
that are successful among the fruit grow- 
ers in the Central West and along the 
Atlantic coast. 
Co-operation in the West 
Fruit growing is a highly specialized 
industry in the Western states. The 
growers there have often had extensive 
business experience before engaging in 
horticulture. The industry in the West 
is confined to the valleys and foothills 
or is more or less geographically local- 
ized in other ways. Land values are 
usually high in comparison with the 
price of land in the Hast, cultural prac- 
tices are more expensive and intensive, 
the markets are thousands of miles dis- 
tant, and the problems of production, 
transportation, distribution, marketing, 
and legislation are too complex for the 
average individual grower to meet and 
solve alone. Under these conditions co- 
operative effort is a business necessity, 
just as the consolidation of capital in 
other industries is necessary for its own 
preservation. The production, buying, 
distribution, and selling of crops must 
be accomplished by working together. 
Things must be done in a large way if 
the fruit grower is to deal on the same 
level with the combinations of capital 
with which his product comes in con- 
tact at every step from the orchard to 
the consumer. The Western fruit grow- 
ers have therefore formed associations 
of various kinds to work out the prob- 
lems that confront them. 
At the foundation of the semi-arid 
western horticulture lies the necessity 
for irrigation, and the irrigation systems, 
which are largely owned and controlled 
by the farmers, form a common tie which 
binds them closely together and makes 
co-operation in other things more easily 
accomplished than is the case in the 
humid fruit-growing sections of the East. 
They may co-operate to protect the or- 
chards from insect pests and diseases or 
from frost, to pick the fruit, to prepare 
it for shipment, and to direct its distribu- 
tion, storage and marketing. They may 
own outfits for spraying and fumigating, 
packing houses that cost thousands of 
dollars, and storage plants of large capac- 
