COOPERATIVE CITRUS-FRUIT MARKETING AGENCY. 5 
modeled upon what is believed to be the exchange plan. At the same 
time, there is lack of understanding, outside of the California citrus dis- 
trict, as to the form of organization and operating met hods of t he ex- 
change and the affiliated associations of which it is composed. Still 
less is known of the factors which have influenced its development, 
Citrus shipments from California, 1887 to 1922 (for crop year endinir September 80 . 
1890 
1895 
1900 
905 
1910 
1915 
19 20 
1925 
Fig. 2.— Both oranges and lemons are being grown and shipped in ever-increasing amounts from Cali- 
fornia. The greatest rapidity of increase occurred between ls95 and 1910, but shipments are still 
increasing at the rate of approximately 1,000 cars a year. Thedeclinein shipments in 1913 was caused 
by a severe freeze the previous winter, the decline in 1918 by several days of extremely hot weather 
in June, 1917, which destroyed a large part of the orange crop of the 1917-18 season. 
and of the problems and difficulties which have confronted the ex- 
change members during the life of their organization. 
This bulletin describes the organization and traces the develop- 
ment of the exchange system. The services which the organization 
has rendered the industry and the fundamentals upon which it is 
based are analyzed and discussed. The operation of the exchange 
and of its constituent locals is presented briefly. It is planned to 
present this feature in detail, together with a study of operating 
expenses and margins, in a later bulletin. The present bulletin will 
be of interest to students of cooperation generally, to officers and 
members of cooperative associations who may wish to analyze their 
own organizations in the light of the experiences of the exchange, 
and to producers and extension workers who may be interested in 
forming cooperative marketing associations. 
The central marketing agency — the California Fruit Growers Ex- 
change — is not the entire exchange system, nor indeed its most impor- 
tant unit. On February 1, 1923, the system was composed of 192 3 
local packing units. A few of these are lar^e individual shippers or 
commercial packing companies, but approximately 75 per cent are 
cooperative packing associations. These associations are controlled 
exclusively by their grower-members, and their directors are gen- 
erally men of more than ordinary business ability. Several asso- 
ciations own property valued at $300,000 or more, and do a bus- 
sin May, 1923, there were 192 associations or corporations affiliated with the exchange operating 212 
packing houses. 
