106 
FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
Mr. Christiancy—Can you tell us how 
long it has been in this systematized con' 
dition ? 
Mr. Quinby—In 1892 they were just 
as disorganized as we are today and for 
ten years they had a terrible time and a 
terrible struggle. I11 1903 they began 
what was known as the Fruit Agency, a 
joint office of the Independents and the 
Southern California Fruit Exchange as 
it was then called 1 . This Agency ran from 
the 1 st of April, 1903, until the 31st of 
Aug'ust, 1904, and was a consolidation of 
all agencies into one selling office. There 
was only one office from which you could 
buy fruit. The fruit carried badly that 
year. They abandoned the Agency and 
now let the Independents compete with 
the Exchange, so that the grower has two 
strings to his bow, and a good many take 
advantage of it. Until after the season of 
1902-3 under the regime of the Southern 
California Fruit Exchange, was a hard 
time for California growers. There were 
individual interests fighting the Ex¬ 
change, marketing interests fighting it 
that were tied up with car lines, and cor¬ 
porations fighting it. From 1892 to 1903 
they were not making much of a success 
of it because they were fighting each oth¬ 
er. They fought so hard that they agreed 
to stop fighting. Now with the California 
Fruit Growers’ Exchange handling 55 to 
60 per cent, and the Independents the bal¬ 
ance, they have things in pretty good 
working shape, and it would be well for 
us to follow it as nearly as we can, adapt¬ 
ing it of course, to suit our different con¬ 
ditions. 
Mr. Christiancy—I have been told that 
on all fruit that goes out of Riverside the 
grower is paid the same price per box; 
that is, every man gets the same per box 
for his fruit whether he sent 39 or 3,900 
boxes. 
Mr. Quinby—That is true in Californ¬ 
ia except those growers who put up their 
own fruit. The grower does not know 
anything about the price per box. His 
fruit is weighed in at the packing-house 
and of course, he knows how much his 
fruit weighs. Then it practically loses its 
identity. It is graded and then it goes on 
the sizer belt. His fruit is entered upon 
the books of the association by its weight 
and the distribution of returns is made 
according to weight. He does not know 
how many boxes lie has, and it would 
take a Philadelphia lawyer to figure out 
what his fruit has brought him per box. 
His fruit loses its identity and individual¬ 
ity entirely after it is weighed. 
Mr. Christiancy—The officials of the 
Exchange then could spend a half million 
dollars of the money and the growers 
would not know it. 
M,r. Quinby—I must say that I don’t 
think there is any grafting going on in 
the Exchange. One or two' are said to 
have been made millionaires in the past, 
but I don’t think there is any of that now. 
I think they are holding back 10 cents, a 
box now to create a fund for advertising 
purposes and other things possibly. Their 
fruit is sold on the box basis and the 
returns come on that basis to the local as¬ 
sociations. There it is split up into 
pounds. The records on the books are 
generally in pounds and so are the credit 
to the individual growers. The distribu¬ 
tion is made in that way. 
