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OFFICIAL REPORT OF THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE 



There are no houses to rent there, and business firms have something to 

 do. As stated by the reports, this year France has only produced 

 about 25,000,000 pounds of prunes; last year, she produced about 

 85,000,000 pounds, but she has produced crops larger than that. In 

 this State, we have got a larger crop than ever before, but it is not 

 a phenomenal crop by any means. You will wonder why there 

 is not a sale for prunes; but that is the condition. The only way 

 to solve this proposition is by organization. Petty jealousies between 

 districts and men must be laid aside, and you must organize for the 

 benefit of business. It is going to take labor and a good deal of patience 

 and much judgment and magnificent management at the head of it all; 

 but then, it can be done. I am hopeful, because it is my pleasure to go 

 from one section of the State to another, and I notice in the fruit sec- 

 tions that all the men say, " We want to organize." Why can't we 

 have organizations so that one district may support another. Then this 

 business will build up. This is the grandest fruit country on the face 

 of the earth, and growers should lay aside all small questions and unite 

 for the benefit of the dried fruit industry of this State, and you can 

 have success as it never has been in any other portion of the globe. 



Mr. SPRAGUE. I trust this discussion will take a wide latitude, 

 and not be too easily dazzled by brilliant successes which have attended 

 the Raisin-Growers' Association. It may be that there are very great 

 differences between the raisin and the prune industry as to the distribu- 

 tion of the growing crop throughout the whole coast. It may be that 

 there are other very great conditions which will make it difficult for us 

 to succeed on the same lines as the raisin-growers. We may not be quite 

 satisfied to risk the failure of the whole to secure just this particular 

 form of organization. I desire that we should exercise caution in con- 

 sidering the subject; my own experience in the matter of organizations 

 teaches me and convinces me that every form of organization which 

 lives is of advantage to those who organize and compose it. That has 

 been the history of organization in this State. But we must advance 

 step by step, making it more powerful each day, until it arrives at the 

 topmost utility. If we cannot do it all at once, let us do what we can; 

 let us consider this matter beyond the limits of the raisin-growers' 

 organization. 



Prof. CHILDS. This question of cooperation is a question of educa- 

 tion, and if there is any place on earth where we should have the advan- 

 tages of cooperation, it is in the Santa Clara Valley, where we are 

 going to increase our crops, and which I believe to be the prettiest spot 

 on the face of the earth; but we need a great deal of education here, and 

 we were very anxious to have this convention here for that purpose. I 

 have been at different meetings in the southern part of the State since it 

 became a fruit country, and I was there when it was a desert region, and 



