102 PROCEEDINGS OF NINETEENTH FRUIT GROWERS 5 CONVENTION. 



about prices?" "Well, yes; but what I've said has availed nothing; 

 the buyer has simply bid down each time he called. His last offer was 

 4-J cents for my apricots." " I presume you will accept that price." 

 " Yes; I'll have to, since I cannot get a higher price offered." " I know 

 a buyer that will give 9 cents for them." "You do? How is that?" 

 " I can tell you how that is; my information is better than yours to 

 the extent of A\ cents on each pound of your apricots, or $90 a ton." 

 Notwithstanding the many hard-earned dollars this information was 

 worth to him, he did not give me so much as " thank you," but 

 dismissed me with his standing remark, " I* take no stock in this 

 new-fangled notion." However, he did "take stock in it" later on. 

 His sole objection to this method was "it is new." If one should 

 strictly adhere to that idea, or rather want of an idea, he must object 

 to all advancement, past, present, or future. The world is full of such 

 men; they have nothing to say about the prices of grain, live stock, 

 cotton, sugar, etc., notwithstanding they produce it all. Others fix the 

 price, not at the cost of production, plus a reasonable profit, but below 

 the cost of production, if it is to their interest to do so. But this being 

 to them a "a new-fangled" way of fixing prices on the producers' 

 products, the producers will therefore refuse to attempt to do anything 

 either pro or con, and hence continue to move rapidly on toward bank- 

 ruptcy. The "short seller" sells (?) your product for future delivery at 

 a low figure, without troubling you to the extent of even asking your 

 opinion as to the price. When the time comes to deliver your fruit he 

 informs you that the market price is the price at which he had sold ( ? ) 

 your fruit, less his commission. (Of course he does not give you this 

 information in these words.) You, being as innocent as a lamb, con- 

 sider all of his talk relating to the " market price" as " straight goods," 

 and hence let him have your fruit, and with it he fills his short sales. 

 If you will not let him have it at the price he has named he may sud- 

 denly discover there is no such "market price," and also make the 

 further discovery that he has not sold any fruit. He realizes then that he 

 has only agreed with Eastern buyers or speculators to report these fictitious 

 sales, hoping thereby to depress prices. If the " short seller" has made 

 real sales he will " bear" the market all he possibly can, since the more 

 he " bears" the market the greater will be his gain. Whether the sales are 

 fictitious or are to be filled at the price, the result of the depressing effect 

 of those make-believe sales, in either case the whole object is to depress 

 prices. If the " short seller" can get you to fill his " shorts" he will 

 make " big money," not on any single sale, as his gain on one car is not 

 as much as it would be had he sold at a higher price, but having made 

 many sales the result in the aggregate is more than he could have 

 obtained had he sold at a higher price, and hence fewer cars. Put your- 

 selves confidingly into his arms and he will show you how " you will be 

 taken care of." 



One of the means of increasing the consumptive demand, employed 

 by the Santa Clara Valley Fruit Growers' Association, was this: "Teach 

 the consumers how to prepare our dried fruit for the table so that they 

 will be the most palatable." To accomplish this work of education, 

 recipes for cooking our dried fruits were sent to each retail dealer who 

 sold their pack. The object was to furnish each consumer with one 

 recipe. Fruit well prepared for the table will increase its use. 



It is now evident to many that our home market will not consume all 



