TWENTY-FOURTH ANNUAL FRUIT-GROWERS' CONVENTION. 49 



AFTEENOOE" SESSIOIST-SECOKD DAT. 



Wednesday, December 13, 1899. 

 At 1:30 o'clock the convention reassembled. Vice-President Aiken 

 in the chair. 



DISCUSSION ON ORGANIZATION. 



Mr. NAFTZGER. The proposition mentioned by Mr. Sprague this 

 morning — that you have a certain per cent of the fruit before you effect or 

 conclude an organization — I think wherever that is done in that way you 

 will make a mistake. I believe you can make a success of a small 

 percentage, but not a conclusive success. In the orange business we 

 undertook in the beginning to get ninety per cent. I don't like the 

 idea of taking in every proposition in order to get the ninety per cent 

 in, which you will have to do in order to get that number into the asso- 

 ciation. We made our proposition so broad in our attempt to get ninety 

 per cent that we found it was not practical. There were a lot of fellows 

 come in with their "isms" and dogmas about how the thing ought to be 

 done, and it got to be a very much "go as you please" business. We 

 had to take them out and organize again on a business basis, and we 

 dropped sixty per cent the first thing we did and fell down to thirty per 

 cent, and we have never had, since we organized on a practical business 

 basis, over thirty per cent, but we have set the pace for all the orange- 

 growers in Southern California nevertheless. We would do a great deal 

 better if we had more, because this outside business makes us more or 

 less trouble all the time. If I had time I might tell you that we control 

 many of the markets, because we have a capable man on the spot and a 

 large quantity of fruit. 



Another question was raised here at the close of the meeting : I spoke 

 this morning about the necessity, as I believe it, of making this organi- 

 zation thorough all along the line clear to the other end. Now, a gentle- 

 man said to me, at the close of the meeting, that he thought of organizing 

 and had very strong packers in the community, and that they had to 

 include the packers. This gentleman said to me that he did not think 

 they could prevail upon the growers to come in unless they took in the 

 packers also. Let the growers come in, and if the packers don't want 

 to come in let them stay out. Our growth in Southern California now 

 is a permanent and steady one, because we are able to show the grower 

 that we will get more money for him than some one else will get for 

 him — that we are in the market. On the other proposition, the specu- 

 4 — BH 



