118 TWENTY-NINTH FRUIT-GROWERS' CONVENTION. 



and, further than that, to express to him our hearty and cordial thanks 

 for the impartial and worthy manner in which he has presided over the 

 deliberations of this Convention up to this moment. I bespeak, I 

 believe, the sympathy of every member present, ladies and gentlemen, 

 to this liberal man in this hour of his heart's bereavement. All who 

 favor this motion signify it by rising to your feet. Mr. President, it is 

 so ordered. 



Here an adjournment was taken until 7:30 o'clock p. m. 



EVENING SESSION-SECOND DAY. 



Wednesday, December 9, 1903. 

 Convention met at 8 o'clock p. m. Vice-President Mcintosh in the 

 chair. 



MR. McINTOSH. Mr. M. V. Hartranft, of Los Angeles, is on the 

 program for a paper this afternoon: "Fruit Markets and Marketing." 

 I take pleasure in introducing to you, ladies and gentlemen, Mr. M. V. 

 Hartranft, editor of the "Fruit World," of Los Angeles. 



FRUIT MARKETS AND MARKETING. 



By M. V. HARTRANFT, of Los Axgeles. 



The market price of any given product at any given time is that point 

 in the commercial scale of dollars and cents where the man who wants 

 will surrender the coin of the realm to the man who has produced; and 

 the ascertainment of the exact price point at which the great bulk of 

 any commodity can be successfully moved is worthy of the occult 

 powers of a seer, a prophet. Upon this rock some of our strongest 

 marketing organizations have gone to pieces. Who is the man who can 

 run his finger up and down the gamut of prices and stop, with exact 

 precision, on the price point at which an entire crop of any one line 

 may be successfully moved into the stomachs of the people? 



The directors of the Prune Association could not do this thing — in 

 fact, they fixed prices just a quarter of a cent too high, and their great 

 craft wrecked ere it was started upon the first voyage. The directors 

 of the Raisin Association have not been able to do it with continuous 

 success, although they have approached nearer to success than any 

 similar undertaking that has come under my observation. The citrus 

 fruit exchanges have not even attempted to fix a price basis, high or 

 low, but have worked to capture the best results in the consuming 



