PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-SIXTH FRUIT-GROWERS' CONVENTION. 107 



put on the market as olive oil. How can we consistently ask other 

 States, or Congress, to enact restrictive legislation similar to our own 

 when we neglect or refuse to enforce the laws we have for our protection? 



Third — Pickled Olives: I think it is no unwarranted deduction from the 

 evidence that there is a wide market for pickled olives, especially ripe 

 pickled olives, at remunerative prices to the grower and manufacturer. 

 Here, again, the failures are traceable to ourselves. Is it too much to 

 say that if A and B can pay, and are paying, good prices for olives and 

 pickling them and selling them at a profit, others may not do so? A 

 business should be judged by its intelligent successes, not by its igno- 

 rant failures. There is no reason for the existing conditions I have 

 shown, that in Los Angeles the manufacturer is paying but $30 to $40 

 a ton for olives for all purposes, while at Oroville he is paying $40 for 

 oil olives, and $75 for pickling olives. The Oroville manufacturer 

 assures me that he can do well and pay these prices. There is some- 

 thing out of joint at Los Angeles. I am not surprised that the growers 

 have formed an association for self -protection. Pickling both green and 

 ripe olives, and, indeed, the manufacture of oil, is an art. There is also 

 connected with that branch of the industry the mercantile faculty of 

 finding a market. Is it to be supposed that each individual grower in 

 the State, without previous experience and without the knowledge of 

 how best to follow his fruit in all its stages, from the tree to the con- 

 sumer in other States, can, single-handed, be entirely successful? It is 

 quite probable that we may have to come to some such source as has 

 been suggested by some of my correspondents, and establish in the 

 several olive districts large plants to handle the fruit, either as an 

 independent business or by cooperation of the grower. Nevertheless, I 

 have given you evidence that at least two women are growing olives 

 and pickling them and selling them with satisfactory results; and some 

 men are doing equally well. The evidence is that in pickling olives 

 the failures are attributable to ourselves, as usual. We have not all of 

 us learned the art; we can not give the ripe pickled olive the keeping 

 quality; some of us glut the home market with rubbish, and few of us 

 have given the subject the careful and thoughtful consideration it 

 demands. We have gone headlong into a business we knew nothing 

 about, and we have expected that by some sort of inspiration our 

 ignorance would be superseded by wisdom; and, now, we are seeking to 

 shift all the responsibility for our individual failures on the American 

 people, because they fail to give us rush orders for our oil and pickles. 

 Neither the gods, nor the American people, are looking around to help 

 those who will not help themselves. 



In 1897 we imported 942,598 gallons of so-called olive oil. Notwith- 

 standing Mr. Cooper's estimate of the possible output of all the trees 

 now planted, it will be a long time before we can produce this quantity 



