MARKETING FRUITS—CO-OPERATION 
take an active interest in the manage- 
ment of its affairs. In the co-operative 
association the manager is also subject 
to the advice and control of the board 
of directors, but the farmer who joins 
with his neighbors in an association is 
likely to take more than a passing in- 
terest in the management of the associa- 
tion. A manager who cannot hold the 
interest and the confidence of the mem- 
bers, who fails to develop a progressive, 
constructive business policy, will fail in 
handling a co-operative organization. Nor 
can such an organization succeed if the 
directors do not realize that it must have 
a strong, competent, aggressive, well-paid 
manager at its head. It is not too much 
to say that no single factor has operated 
against the success of the co-operative 
associations as much as the incompetent 
managers selected by the directors of 
the associations to handle them. A board 
of directors cannot manage a co-operative 
agricultural association. The outcome of 
the organization will be determined in 
large degree by the character and abil- 
ity of the manager. 
The Payment of Dividends 
Another factor that has operated 
against the success of many so-called co- 
operative associations has been the pay- 
ment of high dividends on the capital 
invested, the stock having been sub- 
scribed unequally by a comparatively few 
members. The organization in which the 
business is not transacted at cost cannot 
hold the confidence and support of its 
members. The payment of one or two 
high dividends on the capital stock before 
the proceeds are distributed to the 
growers has caused the downfall of many 
associations that have been well organ- 
ized in other respects. Another danger- 
ous element has been the ambitious ef- 
fort of new associations to buy and sell 
fruit and supplies outside of the mem- 
bership. The speculative element must be 
rigidly excluded from co-operative asso- 
ciations. The harvesting, grading, pack- 
ing and handling of fruit not grown by 
members invariably leads to a lowering 
of the established standards of grading 
and packing and to injury to the reputa- 
1277 
tion and financial standing of the asso- 
ciation. 
Disloyalty of Members a Cause of 
Failure 
Many co-operative efforts fail through 
the disloyalty of members when the asso- 
ciation is subjected to the skillful, in- 
sidious fire of those who oppose it. The 
farmer is not used to having his business 
attacked, and those who are interested 
in disrupting the organization appeal di- 
rectly to his pocketbook by attempting 
to show that the association does not 
realize as much for the fruit as the 
farmer could realize outside the associa- 
tion. They also persistently insinuate 
that the association is grossly misman- 
aged. 
Jt is a favorite practice of the oppo- 
nents of co-operative distribution and 
selling to offer association members a 
premium on their fruits. The apple 
grower is tempted by a premium of 25 to 
50 cents a barrel over the probable re- 
turn of the association; the peach grower 
by an advance of 10 to 20 cents a box or 
basket, and the pear or small-fruit grower 
by an equally attractive bonus. The man 
with a small crop and a still smaller 
capital often falls before this kind of 
temptation, and if it is held out long 
enough the association may be disrupted. 
These devices are coming to be well un- 
derstood and the fruit grower who joins 
an association in good faith and sells out 
for a small premium is in danger of los- 
ing the respect and confidence of his 
neighbors. 
The Membership Contract 
It is a fundamental necessity that the 
members be held together by a contract 
or a provision in the by-laws which gives 
the association the exclusive right to 
pick, pack, haul, grade, mark and sell the 
fruit of its members, or to perform as 
many of these operations as it may de- 
cide to perform, or to supervise or regu- 
late these operations under rules made 
by the association. The contract should 
be drawn for a term of three to five 
years, giving the grower the privilege 
of withdrawing by notice at the end of 
