102 PROCEEDINGS OF THIRTY-SIXTH FRUIT-GROWERS ' CONVENTION. 



A GROWER'S MARKETING AGENCY. 



By W. C. Walker, of Sacramento. 



The old truism.. 11 Necessity is the mother of invention." can very 

 appropriately be used as the text for a discourse on the question of a 

 grower's marketing agency. It has been well said that history often 

 repeats itself, and I hope in this paper to offer food for thought and 

 the discussion of a similar problem, if not the identical problem that 

 confronted the growers assembled at the State Fruit Growers' Con- 

 vention held in San Francisco. December 5. 1909. At that meeting the 

 growers of tree fruits grown for Eastern shipment were in a dilemma, 

 and as a result of a general admission all round that the situation was 

 indeed serious, a resolution was adopted as follows : 



Whereas, It is a fact that unless measures are devised to relieve the present 

 situation, the greater portion of our shipping fruits will have to be worked over into 

 drying or canning varieties, thus relieving us of one great outlet for the products of 

 our orchards. 



At that time drying and canning fruits, also table grapes, were in 

 excellent demand and the only real dark outlook was in shipping fruit. 

 We have lived to see all three fruits mentioned reach a marketing stage 

 more serious than shipping tree fruits. "We have had the pleasure of 

 seeing the organization which was created as a result of the resolution, 

 develop a market not only for the crops then in peril, but ship canning 

 varieties East successfully the past season — a dried fruit agency formed 

 and patterned along the same lines successfully marketing raisins and 

 dried fruits, and we hope to develop a way for making our table grapes 

 more profitable. 



A committee was appointed to prepare a form of organization. The 

 committee met in Sacramento. January 16, 1901. The name adopted 

 was the California Fresh Fruit Association. 



A later meeting was called at Newcastle, where the committee made 

 its report, and as a result associations were formed at Loomis. New- 

 castle, and Penryn. The associations were formed for the purpose of 

 gathering the fruit and loading it into cars for market ; each realized 

 that individually they would be almost powerless in the markets against 

 the many rival concerns then engaged in open warfare, and a competi- 

 tion which if continued would have meant ruin to many growers as well 

 as those engaged in the shipping business. Therefore, a marketing 

 agency or exchange was needed for obtaining orders, distributing, and 

 selling the fruit. The result was on May 1, 1901, the California Fresh 

 Fruit Exchange was incorporated as a marketing agency for the various 

 growers' associations. It had no jurisdiction in local affairs, but had 

 merely to do with finding markets. This arrangement was wise and 

 needful, for should the control be from the central organization, the 

 exchange would become all powerful, and the master instead of the 

 servant. It has worked out that the associations to-day are all powerful, 

 and the exchange purely a marketing service with the ownership and 

 control so widely distributed over northern California that any danger 

 of a few getting hold of the government of the organization is averted, 

 because the same is vested in representatives from districts several 

 hundred miles apart. The directorate is made up from the various 

 associations, and they are all so anxious to maintain it as a purely 



