MARKETING FRUITS—CO OPERATION 
with its brands of fruit, than to attempt 
to market all of the fruit under the same 
brand through one organization. These 
organizations may act independently in 
the purchase of supplies and in the mar- 
keting of the fruit, or they may federate 
and form an agency to act for them in 
the distribution and marketing of the 
fruit, in the purchase of supplies, and 
in promoting the co-operative movement 
in other ways. It is only under this 
method of organization that the co-oper- 
ative association can reach its highest de- 
velopment of better methods of fruit 
growing and in rural development. 
The Organization of the Citrus-Fruit 
Industry of California 
The citrus-fruit industry in California, 
which has developed commercially since 
1878, when the Washington navel orange, 
originally grown in Brazil, was sent to 
Riverside by the United States Depart- 
ment of Agriculture, represents an invest- 
ment of 150 to 175 million dollars. The 
annual shipments of oranges and lemons 
have reached the enormous total of 40,- 
000 to 50,000 carloads, with a value in 
California estimated to vary from 20 to 
30 million dollars. Between 125,000 and 
150,000 acres have been planted to citrus 
fruits, and from 100,000 to 150,000 people 
depend on the industry for a livelihood. 
The industry is localized largely in 
Southern California, though it is extend- 
ing rapidly in the interior valleys to the 
north. No other horticultural industry in 
the United States of equal extent is so 
compactly located. None presents more 
difficult problems or requires a more 
skillful distribution and marketing of the 
crop. Oranges and lemons are distributed 
from California practically every day in 
the year for distances of thousands of 
miles to all of the important cities and 
towns in the United States and Canada, 
and some are exported to other countries. 
When the industry was small no com- 
plicated problems of distribution or mar- 
keting faced the grower. The fruit was 
sold for cash to buyers on the ground 
or to brokers who represented distant 
commission houses or other interests, or 
it may have been sent direct to a com- 
2-——4.0 
1281 
mission firm in some far-away city. As 
the industry grew larger and there were 
several thousand carloads of fruit to sell, 
the grower began to realize that the sys- 
tems of selling the fruit already in oper- 
ation were inadequate to bring to him 
the proportion of the returns which his 
capital was earning and to which he con- 
sidered himself entitled. Under the sys- 
tem in operation there were frequent 
gluts in a few of the markets and ap- 
parently no effort among the buyers to 
equalize the distribution of the fruit 
geographically or throughout the year. 
The buyers were said sometimes to have 
fixed the maximum price which would 
be paid the grower and to apportion the 
citrus-fruit area into districts so as to 
reduce competition among themselves. 
The result was disastrous to the pro- 
ducer and became so serious in the early 
nineties as to threaten to wipe out the 
capital invested in the industry. 
About this time the growers began to 
organize small associations for the pur- 
pose of preparing the fruit for shipment, 
and in order that it might be assembled 
in quantity and sold for cash or shipped 
as a unit. Mr. T. H. B. Chamblin, of 
Riverside, was the pioneer in organizing 
the citrus-fruit growers of Southern Cali- 
fornia. The Pachappa Fruit Association 
was the first one formed, about 1888. A 
number of these growers’ associations 
were soon formed, and in 1898 a plan 
was outlined by Mr. Chamblin, and finally 
adopted in principle, which federated a 
number of the associations and provided 
for the preparation of the fruit for mar- 
ket by the local associations, for the 
organization of district exchanges to be 
made up of the local associations, which 
were to receive orders for the fruit and 
apportion them among the associations, 
it being the intent at that time to ship 
only such fruit as was sold before picking, 
and the formation of an executive com- 
mittee, made up of representatives from 
the district exchanges, to market the 
fruit. 
Out of this federation grew the South- 
ern California Fruit Exchange in 1895, 
and later, in 1905, the California Fruit- 
