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Sonoma or Vaca Valley has any quantity of prunes which they will 

 sell at a cent a pound cheaper than we ask for ours, and if it comes to 

 a question of apricots, they will sell a first-class cot for 5^ or 6 cents, 

 such as we are asking 7-§ for. Of course we understand, and there is no 

 earthly object in a man's buying our fruit at 1\ cents if Vacaville will 

 sell at 6. And the next man has perhaps been down through Fresno, 

 and he comes back without purchasing. And he goes around saying that 

 he can get all the peaches and all the cots he wants at Fresno at 1 to 2 

 cents a pound cheaper than he can get them from us. And we can see 

 no reason why any man should come to us and pay a cent or a cent and 

 a half a pound more for fruit when he can buy as good a quality and all 

 he wants at other places. And so from one year's end to the other we 

 are constantly plied with such reports from different parts of the State. 

 You know how slow we are down in Santa Clara Valley. The Almighty 

 has made us so. We conform to the nature of our being and the 

 nature of our surroundings. We are four weeks behind other parts of 

 the State. The fruit at Vacaville and at Napa and at Fresno and in 

 other parts of the State down south matures about four weeks earlier 

 than ours, and is dried and ready for market sometimes before ours is 

 gathered. Therefore, you get earlier sales of your fruit. We do not 

 expect to compete in these early sales. And yet Eastern people are so 

 uneducated with regard to conditions in our locality that they insist 

 that we shall ship them apricots in June or early in July, when the 

 fruit on the trees is hard enough to use as bullets to shoot squirrels or 

 larger game. Now, we have no way of meeting such competition as 

 that. What we would like to have you people do in different parts of 

 the State, is either to sell all out at those prices,- early, or else ask a bit 

 more, so that when buyers come to us they will not stand on a quarter 

 or a half cent, as they do. When it comes to the question of prunes, 

 we think that perhaps we raise a little the best prune in the State. 

 And yet I have to admit that I have seen prunes grown in some other 

 parts of the State which are as good as we raise. And I have seen 

 some prunes raised in our county that I think could be beaten in nearly 

 every part of California. [Laughter.] Sometimes we have extreme 

 heat that matures our fruit a little too goon. These are some of 

 the difficulties that we have to contend with, but they are not all. 

 From one end of the country to the other nearly every man who 

 sells prunes has a broker or commission house through which he 

 does business. By this mode of handling, concentration of prod- 

 uct is impossible, and dealers as well as growers are forced to 

 compete against each other. This tends to keep prices at a fig- 

 ure lower than that warranted by the law of supply and demand. 

 There is another difficulty. In Oregon and Washington they are pro- 

 ducing a large and fine appearing prune, and one that sells well on the 

 market. They have got a little more acid in them than ours, and some 

 people like them much better than they do the sweetness of our prunes. 

 This is legitimate competition. But competition which is caused by 

 lack of concentration there is no necessity for. I believe that consign- 

 ments are the bane of the business. Of course the alternative follows, 

 that if we do not sell on consignment we must sell for spot cash, or we 

 must sell f. o. b. in San Jose, or Sacramento, or San Francisco, or other 

 terminal point. Our produce is increasing to such an extent that we 

 must organize for self-protection or go to the wall. I want to say this 



