The San Francisco call., 1904-07-16
CASH FOR FRUIT.

Citrus Union, The Call directed attention to its
- proposition promote the cash sale of citrus
fruits California by encouraging the buyers appear
where the crop The leak in the orchard profits
of this State between the and the pro-
ducer. That leak is due to freight charges which
a known quantity, and do account for the
poraton of what the pays before it reaches
the producer The trouble is that the producer
PEELED take all the risks of the business until the
fruit is in the mouth OF the eater.
Cash sales the shipping point nearest the orchard
would end the growers risk there and he could go home
with his cash in his pocket knowing just what he had,
without lying awake ponderng the problem of who
would rob him most and how. If the Citrus Union
any other organization approximate this desirable
condition it should be encouraged. 1t with that
view that enlarged knowledge of its purposes. In
doing this only promoting a commercial prn-
cple that is of the greatest Importance to all the pro-
ducers of perishabe property. They have nothing to
say about the of carrying it, about the final
price to the They lose control of it entirely
when it goes into the Yet it continues at their
risk until its final consumption.
Everybody who touches it between the producers and
the makes money out of it. The railroads take
their freight charge in advance. The mddeman takes
his commission. The boxmaker takes his cash in ad-
for his boxes The producers pay cash to every
body else with whom they deal in picking, packing and
Transporting their fruit, and it is the wasteul and
unbusiness-ke system that compels them to give up
L
1t is easy to misunderstood newspaper and to
ascribe to it sinister motive, that to have
been misunderstood in this We in receipt of a
letter from member of the Southern California Fruit
Exchange which opens the subject by saying: 81
surprised to read in your paper of June 28 your ed
toral entitled Cash for Fruit You to be under
misapprehenson the personality of the Citrus
Union and the amount of fruit controlled by them
Then follows an exposition which it is not necessary
to reproduce by which it appears that the shipments this
year have been divided as follows: Southern California
Fruit Exchange 40 per cent; Citrus Union 81 per
Independents per cent.
The writer continues 81 ncose circular issued by the
Southern California Fruit Exchange, feel that
you do wish your great influence in damaging
the cause of cooperation among growers. There is
question as the advisabity of selling fruit for
cash in California, but this much is desired and be
obtained only when the large majority of the
the wisdom OF combining their interests with their
fellow growers in cooperative organization such
the exchange
Now without enforcing the suggestion that it is natu
raj for salvation only in his taber
nace, we desire say that whoever may whatever
organization advance the orchard interest by foster
ing cash transactions California will have support
1t is the commercial principle for which contend,
for any special instrument for its accomplishment
We are even willing to be criticized unjustly if that
will aid III such agitation will inspire the combined
wits of the producers seek and by which
their fruit will cash the shipping station, just
as the Eastern farmers wheat corn and livestock
mean cash at the nearest railroad point
If cooperation will help by all cooperate but
we beg suggest correspondent that coopera-
ton not secured under the sectional banner of
the Southern California Fruit Exchange" The North
Citrus Growers have apprecabe and excellent
output Their experience is that marketing their fruit
under the stencil of the Southern California Fruit Ex-
change it be thought East that Portervlle
Oroville Palermo Coverdae and Lincoln in South
California. They do not like to merge their indivd-
uaty in that way. The great experiment of cooperation
will go rapidly and satisfactorily if the directors
of that organization content themselves with drop
ping the sectional adjective. Every knows that
single grower south of Tehachap would join Northern
California Fruit Exchange it held the pros
pect of material benefit The stake is great that it
should not be impered by adjective.