32 BULLETIN 547, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
for selling the products now manufactured. Two of the central 
selling companies now operating are described' in detail elsewhere in 
this report. 
FRUIT AND PRODUCE MARKETING ASSOCIATIONS. 
Number and location. — The 871 fruit and produce associations 
that reported have a much wider distribution throughout the country 
than any other class of cooperative enterprise, 42 States having one 
or more of these farmers' companies as shown in Table I. (See also 
Chart 11.) The leading States, and the number reporting from each, 
are California 124, Arkansas 63, Florida 55, Washington 52, Oregon 
40, Louisiana 34, Missouri 34, New York 32 and Texas 31. In Cali- 
fornia and Florida organizations of citrus-fruit growers are the leading 
types; in the North Pacific States the apple growers' organizations 
predominate, and the organizations vary in the other regions of 
the country according to the principal kinds of fruit and produce 
raised in commercial quantities. 
Plan of organization. — Of the fruit and produce associations, 307 
reported operating on the capital stock company plan wnile 504 
reported the cooperative method. Thus compared with elevators, a 
considerably larger proportion of the fruit and produce companies 
follow the cooperative method, while the proportion is somewhat 
smaller than in the case of creameries and cheese factories. 
There is a general trend among cooperative fruit and vegetable 
marketing concerns toward centralized selling and unity of action in 
matters of mutual interest other than selling. This is accomplished 
by the federation of small local assembling associations into district 
organizations; these in turn operate through a central selling agency. 
In some cases the district or local associations federate for gathering 
crop and market information and for accomplishing other work 
which is impracticable for individual associations, but each retains its 
sales machinery and sales policy. The central sales policy is in 
operation among the citrus growers of Florida and California and 
the walnut and almond growers of California, and has from time to 
time gained and lost in favor among associations in the Pacific 
Northwest. The plan of federation for gathering information and 
perfecting better distribution has been used by numerous cooperative 
and independent companies in vegetable districts in handling un- 
usually heavy crops. 
A history of the cooperative movement in many of the fruit and 
produce districts would show numerous experiments and a rise and 
fall in the support of the organization from one year to another. 
Practically all new districts pass through the same general experi- 
ence as that through which the older organizations passed; conse- 
quently, the most successful cooperative fruit and vegetable market- 
ing concerns are usually found in districts where these associations 
