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great bulk of the fruit passing chiefly through two hands, a large number 

 of cooperative companies. Eastern brokers, fruit commission men, and 

 others, have entered the field and have been making indiscriminate 

 shipments to the various Eastern markets, resulting in disaster all 

 around. Each shipper has, naturally, endeavored to hide his movements 

 from all others, and the result has been that all have worked in the 

 dark, and the directing to destination of the fruit has been almost entirely 

 a matter of guesswork. The wonder is not that the loss has been so 

 great to the grower, but that under the circumstances, the losses have 

 not been still greater. So long as this unintelligent manner of distrib- 

 uting fruit shall continue, so long must disaster follow, with injury to 

 all and benefit to none, excepting perhaps, to the Eastern consumer. 



" Early this year I foresaw the present results and advocated the estab- 

 lishment of a Bureau of Information, to be supported by all engaged 

 in shipping fruit, whether growers or shippers. The purpose of this 

 Bureau of Information being to issue daily bulletins to all subscribers, 

 showing the condition of each market, and the contents and destination 

 of the cars of fruit eastward bound; so that all shippers might each 

 morning have before them a photograph, so to speak, of the situation, 

 and in that way be enabled to more intelligently determine where their 

 fruit should be sent. 



" Though advocating the plan, I had little hope of its adoption this 

 past season, realizing, as I did, that many growers and shippers would 

 be loath to reverse the old time policy of hiding all information concern- 

 ing the movement of their shipments and follow a new policy of giving 

 to this proposed Bureau the fullest information concerning the move- 

 ments of their fruit. I realized that it would be a hard matter for them 

 to see the necessity and the wisdom of such a step until serious loss and 

 suffering alone would finally leave them no choice between this — to my 

 mind — progressive step or ruin. The policy of wild-cat shipments, con- 

 tinued this present season, with its disastrous results, has, perhaps, done 

 more to prepare the minds of the shippers and growers for the proposed 

 plan than years of writing or speech-making, and I believe that the 

 time is now ripe for the earnest agitation of such a step. 



" The auction system, now so thoroughly and so successfully estab- 

 lished throughout the East, has revolutionized former conditions. It is 

 a system which insures the absolute sale of all fruit immediately on its 

 arrival at the rate of five minutes to a carload; a system which brings 

 to the grower the highest price his fruit is worth at the most favorable 

 moment, which, of course, is immediately on its arrival; a system which 

 gives the grower absolute protection, and insures his getting from 

 the Eastern agent every penny his fruit is sold for; a system which 

 practically means spot cash payment on the part of the Eastern buyers, 

 since all responsible Eastern receivers are expected to remit within 

 twenty-four hours after the sale; a system which makes it possible for 

 the shipper at this end to know the result of the sale on his entire ship- 

 ment within an hour of such sale taking place — which information 

 formerly did not, as a rule, reach him for weeks; a system which has 

 put all Eastern buyers on a level, and has thereby encouraged many 

 hundreds of Eastern dealers, large and small, to deal in California fruits, 

 who formerly either could not or would not handle our products, but 

 who in recent years have worked out so many new channels of trade 

 that our shipments, from 1,000 carloads or less in a season, have 



