TWENTY-NINTH FRUIT-GEOWERS' CONVENTION. 



83 



There is no question about that. The average price received did not 

 exceed 1-| cents per pound in the SAveat-box, and any raisin-grower 

 within the sound of my voice will testify that raisins can not be 

 produced for less than l-g cents per pound. The Raisin-Growers' 

 Association Avas organized in 1898. The first year was an experiment. 

 Some attempts had been made before, all of which were failures. 

 Co-operative companies were organized all over the country, fifteen 

 or twenty of them, and a central organization was formed for 

 the purpose of marketing; but the commercial packer was on the 

 ground, and the commission man was with us, offering cash in the 

 sweat-box. Cash for raisins in the sweat-box is a very forcible argu- 

 ment, and the commercial packer got the best of it. Up to the 

 time the Raisin-Growers' Association was organized, these little co-op- 

 erative companies had gradually decreased in power and in number 

 and they commenced to go out of existence, and finally when the Raisin- 

 Growers' Association was formed they were taken in as a part of that 

 Association, and in 1898 the first result of the Association was that the 

 grower received 3 cents per pound in the sweat-box for his product, 

 which was double the amount he had received during each of the pre- 

 ceding four years. We regarded that as a pretty good start, so it was 

 decided to continue the next year. The result was that the grower 

 received 4 cents per pound, and he has received 4 cents per pound 

 ever since the Association has been organized, excepting the first year, 

 as I have stated, and one other year, which was 1901, when he received 

 a little less than 3 cents a pound. The present year there has been 

 something said as to whether or not the Association will succeed 

 as it has in former years. We have gone only two or three months into 

 the season's business, and I will say that up to date the demand for raisins 

 has been almost as great as in any other season up to a corresponding 

 date during the history of the Association. We have already paid to 

 the growers from the actual sales of raisins — not from any money bo-r- 

 rowed or anything of the kind — $2,000,000. We have on hand about 

 $2,500,000 worth of raisins which are equal in quality to any the 

 State has ever produced, and in all probability we will distribute among 

 the growers over $2,000,000 more by the time that product has been 

 disposed of. Sales have not been, perhaps, as extensive up to this time 

 as they were last year, but conditions are different. The financial con- 

 dition in the East is such that buyers are not purchasing for specula- 

 tion, nor are the jobbers loading with stocks of goods, and I presume that 

 the prune-growers, the orange-growers, the growers of deciduous fruits, 

 the salmon canners, and the canned-fruit dealers are all experiencing the 

 same condition of things. There is no speculative demand. It is sim- 

 ply a demand for immediate consumption. In my judgment the Raisin- 

 Growers' Association was never in better condition than it is now. We 



