PROCEEDINGS OF NINETEENTH FRUIT GROWERS' CONVENTION. 97 



The Sheriff will have to teach you its importance. You ought to have 

 your own agents in every part of the country, and they should be the 

 best to be had. These you can get, since you have all there is in your 

 line to offer. This is more than any one else has. Being able to offer 

 your agents better inducements than any one else can, their selfish 

 interests will impel them to do more for you than they would do for any 

 one else, because that is the most profitable course to pursue. It is to their 

 interest to work honestly, wisely, and conscientiously, since any other 

 course would result in their losing your account and thereby suffering a 

 heavy loss. They could not afford to be false to you and thereby lose 

 your business. You will have to cooperate, at least in the sale of your 

 product, or go out of the business of fruit-raising. You are putting your 

 product in the hands of those not interested in your welfare, with the 

 result to be expected. This year the California Dried Fruit Agency sold 

 a large quantity of our prunes when the market first opened, and I 

 believe we would have sold everything we had in the prune line in six 

 weeks and at good prices had it not been for the " bears " — the short 

 sellers. They went from one end of the State to the other telling the 

 fruit-growers that the fruit-growers' organizations of Santa Clara Valley 

 were consigning millions of pounds of prunes. The truth is these organi- 

 zations were selling, f. o. b. California, and obtaining for 30-40's, '7-J cents; 

 for 40-50's, from 6£ to 6-| cents; for 50-60's, 5| cents in sacks, or half a 

 cent higher in 25-pound boxes; (nearly all of our fruit was sold in 25- 

 pound boxes). We were not consigning anything, not a pound. 



Mr. Adams: What portion of the stories that have come to you from 

 these buyers, that you have investigated, have proved to be true? 



Mr. Righter: No portion; they simply worked to our injury, but 

 without troubling themselves about the means employed. The brokers 

 must make money, and you ought to aid them in making it, but not to 

 the extent of permitting them and other handlers of fruit to make it all. 

 The thing to do is to hold your product at a living price above the cost 

 of production. If the fruit will not go into consumption at such a price, 

 produce less or seek new markets. If you will not thus protect your- 

 self you will not be protected. Others make their living by attend- 

 ing to their own business, and you will make yours in the same way. 

 Others make money by selling at a profit above the cost. You will 

 make money in that same way, or else not make it at all. Let short 

 sellers and speculators make the price, and they will make it as low, if 

 not lower, than the cost of production, if they think they can make 

 money by doing so. You will get better prices if sales are made f. o. b., 

 and the commissions will be less. Consignments will ruin you finan- 

 cially. This is admitted even by commission men. They know that 

 such will be the final result fully as well as you do. 



The convention adjourned until 7:30 p. m., when the consideration of 

 the subject of cooperation was to be resumed. 



7— fg 



