62 
FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
ping season and to the geographical 
distribution. The Exchange has grown 
steadily from 1895 when it handled 
about one-third of the crop until the 
present time when its shipments 
amount to something like sixty per 
cent. No better account of the work¬ 
ings of the exchange can be given than 
is found in Bulletin 123, recently pub¬ 
lished by the Bureau of Plant Indus¬ 
try, Department of Agriculture, which 
says, “Among the co-operative organ¬ 
izations, the California Fruit Grow¬ 
ers’ Exchange packs and sells through 
its own district agents in the markets 
somewhat more than fifty per cent, of 
the entire citrus crop. This organiza¬ 
tion is formed to regulate the distrib¬ 
ution of citrus fruits throughout the 
country and to give to its members 
the benefits that arise from its co¬ 
operative efforts of various kinds. 
This Exchange represents about 4,000 
growers, who are organized into more 
than eighty local incorporated associa¬ 
tions, the primary function of which 
is to prepare the fruit for market. The 
associations in the different producing 
regions combine into one or more 
local incorporated district exchanges 
or selling agencies, which sell the fruit 
through the district agents or at pub¬ 
lic auction and receive the money 
therefor through the medium of the 
California Fruit Growers’ Exchange. 
There are thirteen of these district ex¬ 
changes. Each local district exchange 
selects a representative to act for it on 
the board of directors of the California 
Fruit Growers’ Exchange, which is an 
incorporated body acting as an agency 
or clearing house for the district ex¬ 
changes in the marketing of their 
fruit and which operates for the grow¬ 
ers without profit to itself. It takes 
the fruit of the district exchanges after 
it is packed, and with their co-opera¬ 
tion and advice places it in the differ¬ 
ent markets of the country, sells it, 
collects the proceeds, and turns them 
over to the district exchanges, which 
in turn pay the growers through the 
local associations. The California 
Fruit Growers’ Exchange is the 
agency through which the grower is 
able to control the larger business 
problems and the general policy of the 
handling and marketing of the citrus- 
fruit crop.” 
This description gives you a good 
idea of the management of the gen¬ 
eral exchange; but you may be inter¬ 
ested in a more detailed account of the 
relations of an individual grower to the 
Exchange and the way his fruit is 
handled. A group of men, possibly 
one hundred or it may be a much 
larger number, living in a certain lo¬ 
cality form an association. They build 
a packing house and elect a general 
manager, who has the running of the 
house. The shipping season is divided 
into periods varying in length from 
two to six weeks, and these periods 
are known as pools. As the fruit of 
the individual grower comes into the 
house it is usually weighed; at the 
time of packing, this fruft is put into 
the several grades and each grade is 
weighed automatically. A record is 
kept of the individual loads, and this 
gives the weight of fruit of each grade. 
At the end of the pool the total 
amount of each grade of fruit shipped 
from the house is determined and also 
the selling price of this fruit. In this 
way, the manager is able to determine 
what each pound of fruit of each grade 
