Agricultural Organization. 
By C. K. McQuarrie. 
Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: 
It gives me the greatest of pleasure to 
present to you for consideration and dis¬ 
cussion a subject that every member of 
this Society is interested in, viz., Agri¬ 
cultural Organization. 
In dealing with this subject I want to 
say at the start that the word Agricultural 
in this case means Horticulture as well as 
Agriculture. 
There is no doubt whatever of the 
benefit to be derived individually and col¬ 
lectively where there is a wide-awake, 
up-to-date organization of farmers and 
fruitgrowers in existence, and it would 
be to the advantage of the country at 
large if their numbers were largely in¬ 
creased. One can easily understand how 
uniformity of prices can be maintained 
and the proper distribution of products 
controlled by an organization, where the 
individual would be hopelessly lost. We 
have had ample proof of this in West 
Florida during the last twenty years and 
if it would not seem to be out of order, I 
would like to give a little history of a 
couple of these organizations of which I 
happen to be a member. 
Eighteen years ago there was a rush 
of new settlers around DeFuniak and 
every last one of them going in for peach, 
pear and plum growing. We found that 
collectively we could buy nursery stock 
to greater advantage in car-load lots; so 
we organized “The West Florida High¬ 
land Fruit Growers Association.” We 
had a membership of more than one hun¬ 
dred. For three or four years everything 
went along smoothly; bought nursery 
stock and fertilizer in car-load lots and 
saved considerable money in so doing. 
G. W. Mellish was our energetic and 
capable secretary, and A. G. Hollowed 
was president, and under this manage¬ 
ment things did very well. We held 
meetings once a month and in the sum¬ 
mer time, or when weather permitted 
these meetings were held at members’ 
residences in rotation. At those meetings 
was laid the foundation of the greater 
interest that West Florida takes in farm¬ 
ers’ meetings than any other portion of 
the state. And here let me digress a 
little from my subject to' say that the at¬ 
tendance at Farmers’ Institutes in West 
Florida is far beyond any other section 
of the State both in attendance and in¬ 
terest in the subject on hand. 
When our orchards began bearing, we 
tried to ship in the same way that we 
bought, but it somehow would not work. 
The varied individuality of the member¬ 
ship caused considerable friction. Poor 
packing, packing unripe fruit, and pack¬ 
ing fruit that was too ripe were some of 
the causes and we found that, generally 
speaking, the man that did the worst 
packing and was not particular as to uni¬ 
formity in size and coloring was the one 
who did the most kicking and loudest 
grumbling. 
The L. & N. (the only road in this 
