38 PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-SIXTH FRUIT-GROWERS' CONVENTION. 



raised more or less discussion and I think was misunderstood ; I got 

 some very severe criticisms — not, perhaps, from any of the fruit-growers, 

 but I got it from some of the newspapers with whom we do not adver- 

 tise. I have no disposition now to say "I told you so." I cheerfully 

 emphasize and indorse everything that Mr. Jacobs said, which was 

 decidedly on the same lines, more pointedly though, with the matter 

 contained in my paper. When he says that the fruit-growers of Cali- 

 fornia can not depend upon the packers and speculators to market their 

 products, he tells the truth. That is the root of the difficulty which 

 confronts certain fruit-growers of California to-day. 



A MEMBER. You might have added the packers. 



MR. NAFTZGER. Well, they are speculators. A prune-grower said 

 to me on this floor to-day that fully one half or more of all the prune- 

 growers of the Santa Clara Valley are tied up with crop mortgages of 

 the speculator. I have no doubt it is true, because Judge Aiken told 

 me so. He said it was for this reason that the growers did not get any- 

 thing out of their crops, and were obliged to have money. Now, where 

 did the other fellows get the money? Did you ever think of that ? Did 

 you ever stop to inquire where the packer and the speculator got the 

 money to lend? They got it out of the grower; the wrong man has the 

 money; that is the trouble. The man who has expended his energy, 

 has grown up with the trees, and grown gray under the trees— the man 

 who has spent his toil, and energy, and life trying to make a crop, is not 

 the man who has the money, but he is the man who has got the mort- 

 gage on his farm. 



One of the directors of the Cured Fruit Association told me that there 

 was an increase of eighteen per cent in sizing and the dipping of the 

 prunes. I don't know whether that is correct, but one of the directors 

 of the Cured Fruit Association told me so. He said there was eighteen 

 per cent gained in sizing and dipping, and I understand there is 

 also eight to ten per cent difference in the selling. Thus, I say, I 

 emphasize what Mr. Jacobs said on that point. I don't say a word in 

 disparagement of these people. I have declared on this floor repeatedly 

 in Conventions past that we have no imputations of dishonor for the 

 packer or the speculator. He is here because the grower gave him a 

 reason to be here, and he will always be present when there is some- 

 thing to be speculated upon. I am telling the fruit-grower, and what 

 I mean to emphasize to the grower is, that until you learn to do your 

 own business you may expect to have the mortgages on your property. 



Mr. Jacobs said, and truthfully too, that the avenues and channels 

 of distribution are inadequate, and that we need more consumers, and 

 that we are not properly reaching the markets through these shifting 

 ways that are alive to our interests to-day and to some other interests 

 to-morrow. I say again, what I have repeatedly said before, that when 



