The Yakima herald. [volume] (North Yakima, W.T. [Wash.]) 1889-1914, 1911-09-06
ORCHARD
Fair Profits for the Grower
FEDERATION AND COOPERATION BRING SUCCESS
BY \. c. I.aut in the Country Gentleman

|
so often keeps big fellows and little
fellows apart. When the orange
growers were hit hard enough, big
fellow and little fellow were ready to
| forget differncs and com togthr.
on one side were the orange grow
ers. divided and scattered. on the
other side were the commission
houses and spectators, playing into
one anothers hands. 1t paid the
| speculators-especia the specula-
tors of Palermo, the great shipping
| irt for America--to depress the mar
, ket. to buy low and sell high land in
perishable priduct this was easily
accomplished by dumping a lot if
stuff suddenly in an unprepared mar
ket With the glut, down went prices.
| With the fall of prices, out went the
| buyers to the orange growers, who
had to sell or see the years crop rot
on their hands. If one recalcitrant
refused to sell at prices that did not
pay the cost of picking, he was
promptly frightened out of his five
wits by a fresh buyer coming along
and offering him still lower prices.
| OF course, it is not to be suspected
that the two commission buyers had
any pool. OF course not! No more
than in the egg markets of New
York ara New Jersey last winter
when eggs were selling at sixty cents
owing to scarcity. Some storage laws
were passed and the scarce eggs were
dumped by the millions into New
York harbor to avoid breaking that
scarcity. It's little game that has
been worked to perfection for years
in the apple crop Of New York, and
was worked last year in the potato
crop in Maine.
THE conditions We're simply intol-
cradle" said Mr. Woolford, of the
Fruit Growers Association. We had
to organize or lose out. Oranges
were not paying the cost of hand
ling. Speculation was literally killing
the market. We did not desire a
cent more or less than the laws Of
supply and demand justified; but we
could not see how oranges were
worth only ten cents box to us in
California when the consumer in the
east was forced to pay as high as
three, five and ten dollars a box |
don't know that there was any i'll
feeling in the matter. 1t was simply
this: the buyers were united the sell
lers were not. We were distant from
our market; and our product was 4
| perishable one. After organization,
the price was actually cheaper to the
consumer uniform price of from
two to three dollars according to the
crop, with no wild fluctuations up to
| five and ten dollars"
But the California Fruit Growers
Association did not spring full grown
| from desperate necessity. 1t was a
slow growth, as all the best things
area growth beset by all the oppo-
sition that insdious enemies could
direct against it. The growers of
Riverside were the first to come to-
| gether, building a common packing
house with a general manager. Here
fruit was received, inspected, packed,
sold and shipped. Boxes, supplies
fertilizers could he bought wholesale;
| and at least uniform selling prices
were assured to the growers of River
side, To this stage of union most OF
the eastern imitatOrs of the Califor-
mia fruit growers have followed; but
this stage did not go far enough
The individual union was subjected to
very insidious assault. Higher prices
were offered to growers outside the
union than in it. Objection was
made by the buyers to the pooling OF
| fruit. Discomfort was stirred up 10y
persuading the man with good fruit
that his high grade was being stand
ardized down to the prices tor the
poor fruit The last objection was
easily met by rejecting all poor fruit
then inspecting, sorting. sizing and
grading all fruit received exactly ac-
cording to the requirements OF the
big world eastern markets. Your OBJ
iector might talk his head off; but
if the grower received the very tor
market price paid in the east he
was apt to remain contcnted with
his association.
Fcdcrating the FruitGrowcrS
! The orange growers then went one
stage farther and prevented under
mining through different prices by
| persuading independents and neigh
/ boring regions to form their loca'
] pdtkllB OHSbNl Nl'll'7. It W ttH blliN q
! step farther to form a federation OF
! all the packing associations into loca
! district exchanges. a hundred and
ten of these sprang up; and now the
war began in earnest--for the spec
! ulators and middlemcn had to break
the harmony among the different dis
| trict exchanges or 20 out of bust
mess. for the districts were now
handling sixty percent Of the tota
crop; and when it is recalled that tn,
middleman and commission houses
| formerly divided scVenty-HVc per Cen'
of the selling price and that the tota
| crop was now running about twenty
two million dollars a year il can he
guessed that the prize Was one moi
to be lost without a fight. District:
were played against each other bN
the buyers. False accusations were
spread and iealousies stirred mp; bu
/ the one fact that held the one hun
tdred and ten district exchanges to-
gether AS it had held the grower.
lin their individual packing associa-
! lions together, was the very effective
fact that union had put Them In dt-
rect contact with rhe eastern buyer
tuey could get top market prices.
Now the next step was taken by
the orange growers-the one hun