PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-SIXTH FRUIT-GROWERS' CONVENTION. 69 



You see, therefore, it all comes back to your power to control your 

 goods after an agreement is signed to deliver the crop to you. And it 

 is upon these things that the people who manage your business base 

 their action. The law, as it is at present, says this. The grower has 

 signed a contract to deliver his crop; for some reason or other he 

 refuses; you then want possession of that crop. It is not the profit 

 you make in handling it, and it is not the damage you would sustain 

 by not having possession of the crop, but it is to have entire control of 

 the crop that you are after. The courts say to you that your remedy 

 is in a suit for damages. And in the Pool case the association had control 

 of two per cent only, and the court said that the association's damage 

 in that case amounted to $14. What good would that do the directors 

 in marketing that crop? You see you are powerless unless you have a 

 contract on the part Of the grower which absolutely controls the crop. 

 We are now seeking in the Raisin-Growers' Association to control the 

 title to the crop. We ask the grower to sign a lease to the association; 

 we ask the grower to work his vineyard just as he did before, and we 

 will give him for his services ninety-five per cent of what he receives 

 for his crop. The point is this: that we want to be in possession, being 

 the owner and controller of that crop and not only the five per cent 

 which we propose to get. We were forced to go outside of this State to 

 find articles of incorporation that would meet all the requirements of 

 the growers. 



I will now read this memorial, and I will suggest that a committee 

 of seven be appointed, which will represent the various industries — the 

 citrus-growers, the prune-growers, the almond-growers, the raisin-grow- 

 ers, the wheat men, and all others whose interests would be likely to 

 be affected by this law, so that we will have a representative committee 

 that can prepare a bill to be submitted to the Legislature for its con- 

 sideration. I may say, in connection with this, that yesterday I was in 

 consultation with three attorneys. Before leaving home I wrote to the 

 Bank of California, the Nevada Bank, and the Anglo-Californian Bank, 

 stating the necessity for a contract to bind the growers, and asked them 

 if they would assist me through their legal advisers in preparing such 

 a contract. I had a session with three of these attorneys during the 

 whole of yesterday afternoon, and I may say that such information as we 

 may get through that source would be very available to the committee, 

 and may be of great help in preparing the bill that the growers need: 



Resolved, That whereas our laws, as interpreted by the courts, enable manufacturers 

 and others to form combinations and control prices through a sale of any number of 

 properties to one concern, and that these laws practically forbid the formation of asso- 

 ciations of producers for a similar purpose, because it is not possible to vest the title to 

 innumerable farms in one company, and that this condition is a gross injustice to all 

 our producers and constitutes one of the greatest obstacles to the general prosperity of 

 the whole State, in that it compels them to pay combination prices for everything they 



