66 



TWENTY-NINTH FRUIT-GROWERS" CONVENTION. 



The old highway over which co-operation has traveled in the past is 

 strewn with the wrecks of co-operative organizations, so when I was 

 sent into Santa Clara County a year ago to work in the organizing 

 field for the Patrons of Hushandry. it became necessary to give thought 

 to these matters, and I found organizations built upon sandy founda- 

 tions, with a superstructure of insecurity and selfishness on the part 

 of both officers and members. Organizations without one distinctive 

 co-operative feature, except the name co-operation." were used as a 

 bait to beguile the unsuspecting growers under their baneful influence, 

 where interest on the stockholders" capital swallowed all co-operation 

 dividends, until the mere mention of the word '"co-operation*' was to 

 the average grower what the shaking of a red flag is to an angry bull — 

 and this was the field to which I had been assigned. 



It is not my purpose, however, to criticise the failures of the past. 

 Neither do I expect to furnish suggestions not already familiar to you, 

 but rather to rehearse the individual experiences and personal obser- 

 vations gathered in the work as organizer during this period, which 

 may furnish some material which our co-operative builders may utilize 

 hereafter in the co-operative structure. 



A pla^^-loving boy first gave the suggestion which led to the automatic 

 cut-off of the steam engine, so it might happen that from one outside 

 the beaten path of co-operation and less familiar with its work, will 

 come a suggestion which your master mechanics could put to some 

 good use. 



The field assigned me was a difficult one, owing to the distrust- and 

 lack of confidence of which I have spoken, but after a few weeks of 

 earnest effort several organizations were effected in the thickly-settled 

 fruit-growing districts along the west side of the Santa Clara Valley. 

 The b.ringing together of those growers into neighborhood organizations, 

 to discuss the topics of the day, markets, farm and household questions, 

 developed a disposition for action to secure relief from outside agencies 

 working against the growers. 



Organization without co-operative action resulting therefrom is like 

 a tree without fruit — nothing but leaves. Co-operation is the natural 

 result of organization, so that all through these organized districts 

 co-operative organization began to blossom. 



At Mountain View an extensive brick warehouse was transformed by 

 its magic touch into an up-to-date packing-house, supplied with all 

 modern appliances for grading, processing, packing, and shipping. 

 Heretofore this community had hauled its fruit a distance of twelve 

 miles to a neighboring town for packing and shipping, and now not 

 only the expense of the hauling is saved to this community, but the 

 cost of grading, storing, processing, and packing, as well as the incre- 

 ment on something like four hundred tons of dried fruit, is disbursed 



