MARKETING EASTERN GRAPES. 19 
Such abuses are usually founded upon the growers' ignorance of 
marketing conditions and their failure to interest outside competi- 
tion. Publicity, which informs dealers in other sections of the local 
conditions and induces them to enter the deal, often provides the 
necessary competition. Cooperation between the growers to perform 
themselves, and for their own profit, the functions of the local buyer, 
is another alternative. 
Conditions are seldom improved by individual growers entering 
the field of marketing and trying to compete with the buyer, for in 
few such cases is the acreage controlled by any grower sufficient to 
enable hinr to ship easily in carload lots and the necessary connec- 
tions with the trade in large terminal markets usually are lacking. 
Too often the power of monopolistic local buyers is strengthened 
by the failures of growers who have attempted to break away and 
enter the field of marketing. 
Most local buyers or carlot assemblers try to dispose of their stock 
to city carlot receivers on shipping-point basis, as the speculative 
features of their business are thereby reduced to a minimum. When 
their reputation for financial soundness and integrity has been estab- 
lished they are usually successful. This type of factor may dispose 
of his crop in any of the numerous ways which are also open to the 
grower — on consignment, to traveling city buyers through exchanges, 
to juice factories, etc. 
In a few cases carlot assemblers at shipping points have developed 
businesses similar in their methods to cooperative marketing associa- 
tions, in that they handle the product of some of the growers in their 
locality, acting merely as an agent and making a certain fixed charge 
per package. An example of this method is to be found at North 
East, Pa. 
SALES THROUGH COOPERATIVE ASSOCIATIONS. 3 
In many of the more important sections grape growers have taken 
advantage of the possibilities of collective action by the formation of 
cooperative associations. Cooperation is the act of working with 
others for a common benefit, and in marketing fruit it is most prac- 
tical in its application to crops of which a few standard varieties 
ripen at the same time. Thus it has proved of great value in the 
grape industry. 
As these associations take charge of the marketing of the grapes 
produced by their members, they perform a function in the industry 
quite analagous to that of the local buyer or car-lot assembler. The 
associations generally receive the grapes at the car door, load them 
3 See Bassett, C. E. ; Moomaw, C. W. ; and Kerr, W. H. Cooperative Marketing and 
Financing of Marketing Associations. In Yearbook U. S. Department of Agriculture, 
1914. 
