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because we put up our goods so much cheaper. There is an immense out- 

 let in that direction. 



Mr. Hatch: There is an organization in San Francisco called the Cali- 

 fornia Dried Fruit Association; the origin of it was from the fact that 

 many producers of dried fruit were consigning to whoever attracted their 

 attention as one who would sell for them to advantage, and therefore the 

 goods were put in the hands of a great many who were without large 

 experience, and the fact that there being a great many having the fruit as 

 brokers to dispose of, worked to the disadvantage of the producer — those 

 different agents receiving the goods, each striving to do his best with them, 

 and, of course, the purchasers accepted the situation, and where they found 

 many men with the same class of goods to sell, would go from one house 

 to the other getting the price, which would result in shading the prices, 

 and some of us thought it was best to unite our fruits in the hands of some 

 agent that we ourselves would select, and aggregate them there, aud thus 

 prevent our own fruit from competing against itself. The organization was 

 formed late, too late, as some think, and yet there have been a good many 

 cars shipped by that organization. Most of the sales are yet to be heard 

 from, and it really matters little what the success of the drying this season 

 may prove, but it was, without doubt, a method by which we may aggre- 

 gate our fruits and place them in the central markets East, and dispose of 

 them to the best advantage. The Fruit Union, in its first start, did poor 

 work, and the methods now used by it may be much improved — so with 

 this. Our action in this may be very crude now, but we hope that the 

 producers of fruit will unite themselves together, and with their advice, 

 and suggestions, and their fruit may be made one of the strongest means 

 of disposing of our property, and that we intend to make it. 



Mr. Johnston: As to what General Chipman has said about fruit, it is 

 correct, and he has not told a half; but as to what he has said about wheat, 

 I think he is laboring under a slight misapprehension, because I think 

 there is plenty of land in California yet that is not adapted to fruit grow- 

 ing, and that is to wheat growing, and can be made profitable in wheat 

 growing. I do not intend to discuss the question as to whether lands which 

 are profitable to fruit should be devoted to that or not, for I think that 

 there could be no question about that. 



Mr. Chipman: I think that in five minutes we can get on the same plat- 

 form. I have the utmost admiration for the wonderful products of this 

 State, and I was very careful to say that there was nothing which could 

 displace wheat here, but that we should take into consideration certain 

 things connected with it: one, that where land is equally adapted to fruit 

 growing, it is folly to go on raising wheat and make $5 or $10 an acre, 

 where you could make $100 on fruit; besides that, wheat growing excludes 

 population, and fruit growing invites it, for, necessarily, fruit growing 

 increases your population, increases your home demand, and decreases 

 that very large per cent which must go abroad for a market. I believe 

 the time will come when wheat growing will be very profitable in this 

 State, but it will be when we have four or five millions of people here, when 

 we can support them, and then the twenty-five millions of bushels which 

 we now export to Great Britain will be needed for home consumption. 

 The observations of the Commissioners of Agriculture for a period of fifteen 

 years, with the best data that they have been able to obtain from all over 

 the globe, has reduced the consumption of the human family down to four 

 and two thirds bushels per capita, in the United States, of wheat; so with 

 those figures in mind, we can see what population we need here to find -a 

 demand for all of our wheat. I do not desire to be understood as attack- 



