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OFFICIAL RFJPORT OF THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE 



organization that does it, and we have given attention to the business. 

 We have put into the markets intelligent men, who have no business 

 but to serve us — no interest in anything but to take care of what we 

 have committed to them. They are studying the credits and watching 

 the business at every point, and we have, therefore, 'escaped loss by 

 reason of that thing. 



One other thing, while I am talking about this organization at both 

 ends of the line — it is this: My view of it is that California fruit- 

 growers handling all the classes of California fruits should cooperate 

 not only in their several classes but generally. What I want to say, 

 and what I think is not an absurd idea and not a dream, is that the 

 time will come when, in these distributing centers — in the great markets 

 of the East and in the very great cities of the East — we shall have a house 

 that is the distributing center for California products of every class. 

 There is no reason why, gentlemen, in my judgment, after a number of 

 years' experience in managing a large business through the East with a 

 large number of agencies under control, the oranges and the prunes and 

 the raisins and the dried fruits and the honey and any other and all 

 other products of the vine and tree of California should not be sold 

 through the same agency in all the great markets of the country. Some 

 one says that the orange men cannot sell prunes. Very well. In all the 

 markets we are, ourselves, obliged to have from two to five. men. Why 

 couldn't one be a prune man, another an orange man, and another for 

 dried fruit? How did the men we have learn? They all learned by 

 experience, and I don't see why we cannot have trained men in all 

 these departments, and these agencies could be the central points. Why 

 shouldn't every dealer in Chicago know that there, on South Water Street, 

 at number so and so, is the agency for California fruits and that there 

 is no changing the selling price. Couldn't this business be put on as 

 steady a basis as iron or any other product? I would not combine 

 at this end of the line. Let the prune men run their business at San 

 Jose, the raisin men at Fresno, and the dried fruit men wherever 

 they elect to — all managing their own business at this end of the 

 line, but under a common management in the East. That makes 

 practical the reduction of the expenses to the minimum. It will 

 bring to us, gentlemen, a service in the marketing of our fruits 

 that, in my judgment, nothing else can ever bring. How are you 

 going to get prune markets unless you have got men in the markets 

 talking prunes all the time? If you had a general market and 

 each industry sharing in the rents and expenses of the general head- 

 quarters, it would reduce the expenses. We are hoping to continue 

 to make a little profit in this business. Everybody knows that with 

 the increased product of our California orchards we are compelled to 

 reduce the price of sale to a minimum. Some gentleman was telling 



