112 



TWENTY-MXTH FRUIT-GROWERS' CONVENTION. 



MR. HUTCHIXSOX. I have told people to come here, what they 

 could do and what they were doing here. Take it with the farmers in 

 the East, those in the same business we are; they have got to run from 

 one place to another for weeks to get rid of their small crops, while we 

 never have any trouble in selling our crops, and I think nobody in the 

 State has any trouble of that kind. I think those who have kept 

 account of all their shipments know that they have made money, they 

 have found that they have come out ahead. That has been the experi- 

 ence of every man who has kept account of his sales. 



MR. STEPHENS. Mr. Chairman, I regret very much to occupy so 

 much time. I say, with this gentleman, that in former years when 

 there were no manipulations by car lines the fruit-growers made money, 

 and I did, I made plenty of money, but I give you my word that in the 

 last two years my expenses have been greater than my income. In 

 regard to selling, you are right, you have no trouble in selling, because 

 a man comes to you and says: I will give you 30 cents a box for your 

 plums, and you have got to take that 30 cents a box or nothing at all. 

 Now, the 30 cents may cover your expenses for the year and you will 

 get your money back. You have one buyer of deciduous fruits in 

 California, and that is the Earl Fruit Company. Some men, like Mr. 

 Anderson, may be permitted to buy some fruit, but the Earl Fruit 

 Company bought the most of it, except what the Porter Brothers bought, 

 and that fruit w^hich they bought was shipped and sold in their name 

 at a big profit, but the grower didn't get the profit, because he had sold 

 his pears at 50 cents a box and his plums for 30 cents. Now. as I 

 explained yesterday, the reasons why he sold were because the preced- 

 ing year was a disastrous one, because he lost money, because Porter 

 Brothers had this field, and the Earl Fruit Company's agents went 

 around and said that you should not ship with a bankrupt concern 

 and lose money. The year before he did not feel like venturing and 

 was ready to take almost any price, and a large percentage of the fruit 

 grown on the Sacramento River, where Mr. Johnston comes from, was 

 sold and shipped in the name of the grower, but belonged to the buyer. 



MR. HUTCHINSON. I want to state right here, gentlemen, that 

 I have shipped a little fruit from this county, under great disadvant- 

 ages, being three days short of the time from where Mr. Stephens ships 

 his fruit, and I have kept an exact account of every sale and what I 

 could have sold for here, and for ten years I have always come out 

 ahead by shipping East. 



MR. SPRAGUE. Right here I wish to make a statement, and that 

 is, that last year several of our growers on the Sacramento River who 

 shipped to the California Fruit Exchange received net fully as much 

 and some of them a little more than the cash price paid by the Earl 

 Fruit Company and the other company. That was in a disastrous year. 



