The Wenatchee daily world. [volume] (Wenatchee, Wash.) 1905-1971, 1910-10-01
Necessity Of Growers in Wenatchee Valley Uniting
With Fruit Growers Association and Forming ALI
ance With All Other Districts is Shown by Expert
ence of Southern California.

A well defined sentiment is form
| ing that the Wenatchee Fruit Grow
ers' Association must expand and
improve until by cooperation with
all other apple producing districts
of the Northwest. the grower will
control the marketing of his pro.
duct. Various methods have been
suggester as to how this prodigious
task may be accomplished. Some
| have declared its impossibility. 1t
is an old proverb, What man has
done, man can do" The growers
of southern California have united
in a fruit growers union which alb
solutely controls the orange market
Formerly the growers were more
under the domination of eastern
buyers than Is Wenatchee at this
time. Yet the eastern buyer has
been driven back to his home and
the association sells it's pool in its
own way and at its own price.
Last spring the Saturday Evening
Post published a series of articles
on cooperation among producers
by Will Payne. One of thes stories
gave a history of the organization
and success of the California Fruit
Growers Exchange. Perhaps moth
ing can be. found anywhere which
may shed more light on the path
which should be chosen at this
time by the growers of this valley.
The article follows:
California has been trying to CO.
operate for thirty years. The eff
fort expended in that direction has
been truly prOdigious. Enough
mass meetings have been held, asso-
Citations formed, committees APP
pointed, resolutions passed, speeches
made and literature issued, it would
seem, to accomplish anything HUI
manly accomplishable.
AS to citrus fruit a high degree
of success has been achieved. The
California Fruit Growers Exchange
is, perhaps, the largest single CO.
operative enterprise in the country.
IL handles sixty per cent of the Or
anges, lemons and grapefruit grown
in the state, and does a gross bust
ness in excess of twenty million dol
lars a year. From twenty to twen-
ty-five per cent more OF the citrus
crop is marketed through other
cooperative associations or by the
growers themselves, leaving only
fifteen to twenty per cent of the to-
tai crop to be marketed on the old
ery-fellow-for-himse commission
house plan.
Except as to citrus fruit, however,
cooperation can hardly be said to
have succeeded in an important de-
gree The prune man, the raisin-
makers, the cherry, plum and april
cot orchardists, the English walnut
growers, the vegetable gardens have
met, resolved and formed associa-
tions in great number. Mostly the
ASSOCIATIONS have petered out. after
troublous careers of longer or
shorter duration. Broadly speaking
marketing conditions are rather
chaotic as to the orange family.
Troubles With Buyers.
The first car of oranges was
East in an ordinary box
car attached to a passenger train. |
at a cost of fourteen hundred dol |
lars for the haul, which made a |
freight cost of seven cents on each |
pound of oranges.
As oranges multiplied the freight |
cost fell, but the usual troubles
with the commission man arose. |
Buyers used to take the crop on the |
trees, paving a stipulated price and |
picking and packing it themselves.
Year by year, however, they showed
less disposition to buy outright and
more disposition to handle the fruit
on commission basis. Eastern |
houses sent agents into the field to |
solicit consignments. Veteran grow
ers allege that these agents, with
truly diabolical guile, would treat |
the orchardist handsomely the first |
year. in order to gain his contl- |
dence and get him to recommend
them to his neighbors; then, the
next year, would skin them to the
bone. What is more certain is that
the growers recognized only a few
big central markets and made them
a dumping ground for the total
crop. Thus, a market capable OF
absorbing a carload of oranges twice
a week might receive several car
loads on the same day-in which
case prices, of course, would drop
to about the amount of the freight
charges.
Growers Organize.
Everybody agreed that something
must be done to improve marketing
and in October, 1885.
there was a mass meeting of orange
urounrS in Ioc ADpoloc The nrO-