TWENTY-NINTH FRUIT-GROWERS' CONVENTION. 



73 



them to adopt a certain plan, which was to get control of the whole of 

 the crop, to fix a reasonable price upon that crop, to assure the trade 

 that when those prices were fixed they would not be lowered, and to 

 carry the crop through to the next season, if possible, any portion of it 

 that Avas not sold. We thought that if we could convince the trade 

 that we would hold to whatever price we fixed, that we had control of 

 the crop and would not allow it to go upon the market at a lower price 

 than we named, they would buy freely, and that if they bought freely 

 they would urge their agents and salesmen to sell, and it was the policy 

 to name our lowest price at the beginning and to announce to the trade 

 that we would raise the price. This was a temptation to the trade 

 to load up largely and early in the season, and in that way we secured 

 the services of the trade in distributing our goods. We did name the 

 lowest prices at the beginning of our operations, we did keep our prom- 

 ises to maintain prices, we did raise prices the first year, and we did 

 capture their good will, and the next year, when we raised prices nearly 

 100 per cent, they rushed their orders in at once and we sold our crop 

 freely. Now, you may deal with a product like raisins in that way. 

 As to the prune crop, I advised growers to adopt the same plan, for the 

 same reason: to tempt the trade to buy largely at the beginning of the 

 season. Now, when you come to deal with dried fruits, peaches, apricots, 

 and other like products, which are produced outside of California as 

 well as inside, where you can not get a sufficient control of the crop, 

 where you come in competition with unknown quantities, then I agree 

 with Mr. Sprague that you must have a more elastic plan. I therefore 

 suggest that it is quite within our province to act on the co-operative 

 plan and deal with the different products as the conditions require. 



MR. ALLISON. The board of directors chosen by the raisin- 

 growers of this State distributed last year in the neighborhood of 

 $4,000,000 to the growers of this State, and it was the largest price for 

 the largest crop and the money was paid to the growers in the shortest 

 time in the history of the Raisin-Growers' Association. The great 

 trouble in co-operation is that there seems to be two or three cliques, 

 that the "outs" will not support the "ins" for the benefit of all, and 

 to say that the Raisin-Growers' Association has been a failure in the 

 last years I think is not stating the fact. Last year it handled 42,000 

 tons out of 48,000 tons produced in the State, and it paid the growers 

 prior to the annual election. 



MR. SPRAGUE. Mr. Chairman, I believe my friend Kearney did 

 not get quite down to a rigid analysis of the representative democracy 

 method of co-operating. Let us see what we could accomplish and 

 whether there are any objects which he seeks to accomplish with the 

 other plan that could not be accomplished with this, and I affirm there, 

 are none. In the first place, there would be several local associations 



