PROCEEDINGS OF THIRTY-THIRD FRUIT-GROWERS ' CONVENTION. 115 



Exchange members, through the Citrus Protective League, these trans- 

 portation savings amounting to $1,000,000 yearly. 



.The Exchange is not a trust in any sense. It does not seek to control 

 production or arbitrarily to fix prices. It does undertake, so far as 

 possible, by cooperation, to displace the competition of one grower with 

 another in the matter of packing and marketing their fruit by purely 

 economical as distinct from trust methods. It insures to every grower 

 the full reward of growing good fruit and to every association the 

 benefit of good grading and packing. 



Through the operations of the growers in packing and marketing 

 their oranges and lemons, as outlined above, the industry has greatly 

 prospered and has assumed immense proportions. While it is not claimed 

 that all the difficulties of an orange or lemon grower can be avoided by 

 becoming a member of the Exchange, and while difficulties will from 

 time to time surely beset the citrus fruit business, just as is the ease in 

 iron and steel, hogs and cattle, corn and wheat, and all other lines of 

 business, still the growers of citrus fruits will undoubtedly find in the 

 future, as they have in the past years, that by standing with each 

 other in these packing, marketing, and other matters that are of common 

 interest to all, the difficulties that have to be met from time to time 

 will be reduced to a minimum and the greatest net amount obtainable 

 for their products will be received. 



The citrus-fruit growers in California who market their products 

 through the California F ruit- Growers ' Exchange have an enormous 

 volume of business, large enough to maintain their selling organization 

 in every part of the world at a reasonable rate of expense. There are 

 great possibilities, however, for an enlargement of the cooperative mar- 

 keting plan as now practiced by the Exchange to the benefit of other 

 California producers. During the last two seasons many applications 

 have come to the Exchange from growers and organizations of growers 

 who produce celery, cantaloupes, and other fruits of the soil, urging 

 that the marketing of their commodities be included with citrus fruits. 

 All such applications have been refused, with the single exception of a 

 considerable portion of the deciduous fruits of California. 



The benefits to be derived from an enlargement of the Exchange 

 marketing plan so as to cover other products of the State would not 

 only be in obtaining these marketing services at actual cost by the 

 growers of such products, but undeveloped markets, not only in this 

 country, but throughout the world, could be more vigorously exploited 

 than is now the case, when all these producing interests act independ- 

 ently of each other. Offices in all the principal cities of Europe, in 

 the Orient, in Australia, and in other parts of the world, under com- 

 petent local management, advertising and pushing the sale of California 

 products only, would surely result in an increased demand and in- 

 creased prices for the products of the State. 



