PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-SIXTH FRUIT-GROWERS' CONVENTION. 109 



The policy adopted at the beginning of this young industry will 

 determine what degree of prosperity the grower is to enjoy in the future. 



In law, an accessor}^ to a crime can not waive responsibility; neither 

 can the grower lessen his responsibility to this industry by supplying 

 the trade with an inferior commodity, whether it be his individual 

 pl'oduction, or that of an incompetent mill man, whom he recognizes as 

 equally incapable. 



Experience has shown beyond doubt that the Eastern jobbers have 

 lost confidence in all our processes of pickling, and well they may have, 

 for each grower, or mill-owner, has an individual method, with results, 

 in most cases, equally disastrous to the purchaser, when one can be 

 found. 



The question of proper pickling has not been satisfactorily solved by 

 all, and will not be until the correct method is uniformly adopted; and 

 until such time no extended Eastern market will be permanently open 

 to us. 



A secondary prejudice of the Eastern jobber is the instability of 

 price — as a natural consequence when practically each manufacturer 

 seeks a buyer at such figures as his circumstances dictate. An absurdly 

 ruinous and exceedingly profligate expense to an otherwise profitable 

 industry. Bear in mind that a merchantable article must of necessity 

 be a satisfactorily finished product, and let us not deceive ourselves by 

 thinking a solution will apply itself to existing conditions, without 

 cooperation, both in preparing and in selling this product. This branch 

 of the industry is seriously threatened, and each day's delay in applying 

 a remedy makes the problem more difiicult of a successful solution. 



Trade responds more liberally in the oil branch of the industry, 

 because of a more uniform quality; but the average grower is in this 

 handicapped to such an extent by his dependence upon the public mill, 

 that any possibility of a market above cost of production is problemat- 

 ical, and largely dependent upon the generosity of the mill man. 



The effect is the same to the grower, whether each manufactures his 

 own oil and sells it, as before referred to, or sells the green fruit direct 

 to the mill and burdens the industry with a manufacturer's profit. In 



1900, the public mill in Los Angeles, paying an average price of $50 per 

 ton, for fruit delivered, was selling oil in bulk at $2.25 per gallon. In 



1901, the mill paying $35 for the fruit, is quoting oil at $1.85, a depre- 

 <jiation of nearly eighteen per cent in the manufactured product, and 

 thirty per cent in the green fruit; in other words, a profit of twelve per 

 cent more to the mill in 1901 than in 1900, which, as a reserve, is suf- 

 ficient to meet any possible competition this year from the grower who 

 manufactures. 



The depreciation of the raw material here is not justified, and a 

 reason for which no condition exists, except an absence of organization 

 and the non-application of business principles. 



