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$556. Since the membership consisted of about two thirds producers, 

 the entire cost to the producers was about $372. At this pittance of 

 cost the producers sold products through the Exchange that year to the 

 amount of $8,315,286 22; the average price of butter being 25-| cents 

 per pound. The membership during 1893 was 293 and the sales were 

 in the aggregate $8,639,057 87; the average price of butter that year 

 was 26 cents per pound. Notwithstanding the great financial panic of 

 1893 the producers sold more butter and at a higher price that year 

 than during the year 1892. Like other Exchanges, this one has a Com- 

 mittee of Arbitration and a Committee of Appeals, both jointly selected 

 by the buyers and sellers. The decisions of the latter committee are 

 final and binding on both parties. These two committees settle all 

 matters of dispute relating to Exchange sales. 



In 1893 the prune crop of Santa Clara Valley was, in round num- 

 bers, 40,000,000 pounds. The usual commission paid for selling dried 

 fruit in this State is 5 per cent, or one twentieth of the gross value of 

 the crop. Hence, 2,000,000 pounds, valued at 5 cents per pound, or 

 $100,000, was paid for merely selling that year's prune crop. Add to 

 this the cost of selling the apricots, peaches, and the other dried fruits 

 of this valley and the sum is enormously large. It goes without saying 

 that the sum is a great deal larger than the producers ought to pay, 

 and more than I believe they will long continue to pay. It is certainly 

 far more than would be required to sell all the dried fruit of the whole 

 State, raisins included, if sold by the Exchange method. By this 

 method the fruit can be sold for the cost of selling it, the fruit growers 

 paying only their just proportion of that cost. This would leave in the 

 fruit growers' pockets a large sum that is now taken out to pay for sell- 

 ing. Those to whom you are paying this very large sum for this very 

 small service will urge you very earnestly not to make any change. If 

 the Exchange method promised them more than the one now employed 

 they would as earnestly urge you to adopt that method. In other 

 words, they are impelled solely by their interests, not yours, as you 

 must certainly know. 



If you adopt the Exchange method you will do so to protect your 

 own interests, and not to increase the income of others by decreasing 

 your own. It is not a love and affection matter on the part of either 

 party, but on the other hand, is simply pure, clean-cut, unalloyed, cold- 

 blooded business on the part of both. It is business on the part of 

 those who are now selling your fruit to the jobbers to take for their 

 services all the traffic will bear, and it is business on your part to see 

 that the traffic bears as little as possible. I do not blame these people 

 for buying your fruit at the lowest price and then selling it to the job- 

 bers at the highest price. Neither is the jobber at fault for buying at 

 the very lowest price. If one jobber buys at a lower price than the 

 others, he is thereby enabled to force the others to lose either their 

 money or their customers, as they may choose. They are not to blame 

 for beating down prices; the fault is not in them but in the method of 

 sale. Put them all on the same footing as buyers, and they are then on 

 equal footing as sellers. 



The adoption of the Exchange method can only be prevented by the 

 fruit growers. If the fruit growers will not permit themselves to be 

 used to beat the fruit growers, then they cannot be beaten. Those who 

 wish to keep you from doing anything in this "matter, affect to believe 



