TWENTY-FOURTH ANNUAL FRUIT-GROWERS' CONVENTION. 33 



known as trusts. All of these writers find good and bad features in 

 these various trusts. 



The horticulturists of California have been forming combinations for 

 mutual profit and protection, and they have tried to eliminate the bad 

 features which prevail in such corporations as the Standard Oil Trust. 

 These fruit corporations have generally been of great public value, as 

 they are working in the interest of producer, consumer, and mer- 

 chant by lessening some of the expenses and decreasing some of the 

 friction that are usually incident to individual competition. 



I shall endeavor to explain why we are attempting to form a Pacific 

 Coast Fruit Association to handle all the cured prunes, apricots, and 

 peaches on this Coast. This is a very ambitious scheme, as deciduous 

 fruits are produced in patches of country scattered throughout the region 

 from Arizona to British Columbia, and from the Rocky Mountains to the 

 Pacific Ocean; however, Northern California, Oregon, and Washington 

 produce about seven eighths of this fruit. The principal markets for 

 these products are far away, and transportation facilities are very unsat- 

 isfactory. At present a great majority of the fruit-growers try to sell 

 their crops as early as possible for cash, fruit delivered f. o. b. ; some 

 consign to Eastern dealers. This indiscriminate competition of indi- 

 vidual growers has made the market price of cured fruit so fluctuating 

 and uncertain that many dealers in this product, both in California and 

 in the East, have lost heavily. In Santa Clara County eighty per cent 

 of the fruit-dealers, outside of the "Association," have become bankrupt. 

 For various reasons, well known to the orchardists, the cost of producing 

 cured fruit is greater now than it was five years ago, while the price of 

 cured fruit has steadily declined, so that at the present time orchardizing 

 is unprofitable in many localities. 



Fruit-raising is the most important producing interest in Santa Clara 

 Valley, and much of the best land is now planted in fruit trees. Of 

 late years we have planted mortgages quite as rapidly as trees and 

 much more effectively. With the decline in prices of cured fruit real 

 estate has decreased in value, probably fifty per cent within five years, 

 and yet we are told that we are too prosperous to fully realize the great 

 necessity of cooperative effort in handling our cured products. 



During the decade just closing — 1890 to 1900 — several cooperative 

 associations have been formed in Santa Clara Valley. Some of these, the 

 West Side, Campbell, Berryessa, Willows, and East Side, dry, pack, and 

 market the fruit of their stockholders; while the others, known as the 

 Santa Clara County Fruit Exchange and the Santa Clara County Fruit 

 Union, receive the cured product, grade, pack, and sell it. In order to 

 lessen the cost of handling cured fruit and to limit the evils of home 

 competition, negotiations, begun in 1894, resulted in the establishment 

 in 1895 of a common agency, known as the California Fruit Agency, 



