FRUIT MEN HEAR CO-OPERATION PLAN.

Co-operation, and the spirit of "get together and boost, were indorsed recently at a meeting of the California Pear Growers' Association and the Real Estate Association, through Fred E. Reed, president of the latter organization. That boosting "makes things grow' was the opinion of Reed, and was issued by the pear growers as a public statement on the eve of a membership drive.

In part the statement reads:

When the world says "It can't be done"-co-operation does it. One

might as well bid the sun not to rise as to attempt to stay the steady advance of plural effort.

Co-operation is the biggest word in the dictionary of dollars. It puts a giant's shoulder to the wheel, and sweeps aside whatever obstacles may block-to individual endeavor-the

road to success.-L. A. Times.

Item from minutes of membership meeting: Mr. Woods of the First National Bank of Los Angeles now addressed the meeting in regard to the financial status, stating that the bank takes the position that they are willing 10 see the Exchange through their present difficulties and will advance such sums of money as will be needed to carry on the business of the Exchange and to make advances to the members on their crops, but that they must have the wholehearted support of the local exchanges and their individual members, calling attention to the vital necessity of the members maintaining a strong organization and delivering promptly their crops as produced.

Mr. Woods also called attention to the vital necessity of a sales organization capable of selling our product in any part of the country.

The Poultry Producers of Southern California who were so often held up to us in our early days by our opponents as a brilliant example of what a co-operative organization could not do, are about to erect a warehouse and packing and nailing plant on a tract of land recently purchased by them at a cost of nearly $100,000.

Our Los Angeles bankers are cooperating with us, through their research department, in securing a protective tariff for our industry. Banking, today, consists of more. than providing a vault to keep the depositor's money in,

RAISIN GROWERS SUCCESSFUL IN

MARKETS

By J. F. LANGNER

Of all the co-operative marketing associations of farmers, the organization which is perhaps best known to the consumers of this country is the California Associated Raisin Co., now being reorganized as a non-profit, noncapital stock marketing association under the approved form of the federal trade commission.

The raisin industry has broken more farmers and perhaps made more millionaires than any other fruit industry on the Pacific Coast.

If the consumer who reads these lines loves raisin pie, raisin bread and raisin buns, let him thank the raisin association, for before the association was organized the raisin industry of California was doomed and the consumcr would have been buying Spanish raisins at $1 a pound or more and his slice of raisin pie would be costing him 50 cents, if it were obtainable at any price.

RAISIN DEVELOPMENT.

The development of the raisin industry in California has no parallel in other farming lines. Raisins in the carly days were a luxury, a holiday confection which were bought from Thanksgiving to New Year's and especially prized at partics and other "state" occasions.

But pity the poor raisin grower who produced raisins which took 12 months to grow and which the consumer was expected to eat in a few weeks. Every year there were more raisins grown than were eaten in these few weeks, and the surplus was fed to hogs, which were afterward sold for far less than the cost of production of the raisins they had eaten.

It may seem incredible to the consumer that raisins formerly brought the grower sometimes less than a cent a pound. Yet it is the truth.

Raisins, like prunes, are classed as nonperishables, and when there was a carry over every year, very shortly there were more raisins in store-houses carried over from previous crops than could be consumed in any one year and raisins were worth nothing to the producer.

weeks 30,000 tons were too much for him to eat in that time. Now the consumers eat far more than 15,000 tons every month and the end is not in sight.

The raisin association is credited with having conceived and put into practice the first genuine merchandising policy ever conceived by a co-operating growers' association. Wylie Giffin, president of the association for many years, developed the public taste for raisins in bread, pies and in other directions through advertising and sales policies.

By advertising raisin bread and then sending salesmen and chefs to the various bakeries throughout the country the association developed a market for more than 30,000 tons of raisins annually. More raisins now go into raisin bread every year than were consumed in the whole country in 1912. The same is true of pies and other raisin confections. The association maintains sales offices in many parts of the world. It has numerous branches in America. It sells thousands of tons of raisins in the Orient and Australia every year.

BIG ORGANIZATION.

The consumer can well conceive that organization upon a tremendous scale is necessary to do all these things. They were all necessary to preserve the raisin industry to California. No grower could spend $500,000 a year to advertise raisins yet without advertising the consumer would not be purchasing raisins today because there would have been no American raisin industry left.

Before organization the value of raisin lands had dropped to one-fifth their original price. The bankers of Fresno and other cities, and the merchants were almost as badly off as the growers themselves. When agriculture is prosperous the whole community is prosperous; when agriculture is poverty stricken, the cities which depend upon the farmer to buy their manufactured and other goods, are equally affected, Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, all the great centers of production and labor are vitally affected by the success agriculture meets with during the

REAL FACTS ABOUT CO-OPERATIVE MARKETING; GERMANY BUYS OUR PRUNES.

(The following article is written for The Times by L. M. Maynard, manager of the economic research department of the Citizens National Bank.)

up

My

I was attracted into Santa Clara county by the campaign of the Prune and Apricot Association to sign acreage and had been informed that from all appearances the association was doomed to destruction and I wanted to know why a co-operative marketing association operating in such a field should be permitted to dissolve. four days' work through that country showed me that the co-operative marketing idea is sound and considered so by the average grower, but that the trouble with them this year was their dissatisfaction with the management. They wanted more carefully attended to business methods and when the growers found that the association was doomed if they did not sign up, they did so under protest, saying that they would sign now and clean up later. The required association acreage went over and 78 per cent of the prunes of the state are now in the association. This means that about 112,000 acres are in the co-operative agreement.

The figures which I was able to go over while in the north showed me that there is a large carry-over of prunes from the 1920 crop, that possibly 50 per cent of it is still on the coast and that this year's crop will be small.

One thing which surprised me was that Germany had been buying a considerable number of small lots of prunes for the last two or three months, in fact, they are moving in quite a volume to that country.

One outstanding feature in the entire fruit situation is that the crop loss this year will result in better fruit in almost every instance. Apricots, for example, last year were small, this year they promise to be large and very desirable. This situation will be reflected still further when the tonnage of fruit yield is accounted for. The grower may experience a 25 per cent "count" or "grade" loss and yet have his tonnage run up to last year and the classification of his fruit bring him in more dollars than he anticipated, for I find these fellows are still thinking about last year, are doing very little analyzing and are imagining that the world is hanging by a silken thread, which may snap at any moment.

I was surprised at the change from last year in the Santa Clara_county district as regards tomatoes. In 1920 as one drove over the country he would

see little white patches thickly dotting the agricultural landscape these patches were tomato plant hot-beds and the large numbers of them indicated that there was to be a large acreage planted to this vegetable. This year these hot-beds are rare and the acreage is very small, the crop will be short, probably amounting to not over 20 per cent of last year's production, but there is a heavy carry-over, the carryover extending back into 1919.

NO PLACE FOR GLOOMS.

I tried diligently on this trip to allow the individual grower's predicament to affect me in a pessimistic way, but it was so plain on the face of every so-called disaster that the crop cut is a blessing to all concerned, that I could not find myself entertaining the gloom. It seems to me that these frozen credits which have been caused by the speculative holding of commodities are going to be thawed out at a reasonable market figure and that the general firming up of commodity prices in August is now inevitable.

Conditions in the Louisiana rice mar ket are generally improved. The demand is constantly growing and the indications are now that the producers will be able to get rid of most of their surplus before the next crop is made. High freight rates continue to deprive northern and eastern cities of large quantities of early vegetables. Growers complain that transportation charges absorb the greater portion of the proceeds.

The producer must carry the load, this year. The increase of cooperative societies has narrowed down the brokers' field of operations, forced all but the stronger out of the market, and compelled the latter to turn over to the producers the storage of surplus crops. This is why there is such light buying of all non-perishable farm crops. The broker is buying only for the demand within sight.

In spite of the very short crop, more orange has been turned into the Exchange to date than during the same period of 1920. Difference in market conditions. Very little early local buying this season.

LOSSES IN FUR.

Officials of the International Fur Exchange report a deficit of $9.202.137 and an indebtedness of $18.165,603, a condition due, it is said, to the sudden and violent collapse of the wholesale market in the spring of 1920,

Trade Talk advices from financial and industrial centers show a growing optimism. In New York something like stability is being reached in prices over a wide range of the chief items in retail trade. The most powerful factor in bringing this about is the easing of credit. Price changes have been within a narrow range and are not basic. Nearly as many of them have been upward as downward, but they have tended to stimulate buying.

COLOMBIA SHIPPING BROWN SUGAR TO U. S.

Washington, June 1.-Brown sugar is being shipped to the United States from Colombia, according to advices received by the department of com

merce.

First shipment of 3300 bags of 150 pounds each was made in the latter part of March. This shipment, it was stated, marked the resumption of trade in sugar between Colombia and the American markets which had been discontinued during the war years.

Sugar production of all Central America, including Guatemala, amounts to only about 35,000 tons. This is less than 1 per cent of Cuba's annual output.

Honey Sundae.-Honey served with ice cream-poured over it is a dressing -is becoming a very popular dish in Eastern cities.

The unusual May rains greatly improved conditions in the sage belt. Many apiarists will have a considerable surplus where before the rains bees were starving.

POTATO ORGANIZATION.

The recently emphasized need of grading and standardizing market potatoes grown in California has impelled leading growers of Southern California to attempt a Southern California potato-growers' association, for which incorporation papers and contracts are now being prepared. Five-year contracts are proposed, with provision for any grower to withdraw by giving notice in December of any year. It is proposed to utilize existing marketing organizations on a definite commission basis and eliminate independent speculative buyers. Local associations have been in existence for eight years past in San Fernando and San Gabriel valleys and San Bernardino county.

California alone markets the major portion of its honey crop outside of the state in which it is produced,

HOME BREW.

Sixteen Thousand Tons of Raisins Used in 1919.

Home brewers used up more than 16, 000 tons of raisins in 1919, W. M. Giffen, president of the California Associated Raisin Company, estimated in giving a Senate subcommittee his views on the pending bill to authorize collective bargaining by farmers.

He placed the raisin grape crop of 1918 at 167,000 tons and of 1919 at 183,000 tons, the difference in his judgment representing demand from home brewers. This demand was now decreasing, he added, the "hobby" for home brewing apparently having worn itself out to some extent.

The campaign for the California Prune and Apricot Growers, Inc., for growers' contracts with the association for seasons after 1921, ended April 30. In order for the association to continue, it was determined to be necessary for it to secure 75 per cent of the prune acreage of the state, also 75 per cent of the apricot acreage if that variety was to be included. Up to the last day of the campaign, officials of the association were very doubtful of the outcome, particularly as to apricots, but in the Santa Clara Valley many growers, merchants, bankers, real estate men, etc., joined in the campaign and worked actively for its success, with the result that more than the required 75 per cent of the acreage in both prunes and apricots was signed up.

While the final figures of the sign-up will not be made known until the figures have been duly certified, we are advised from a direct source of information that up to the end of the campaign 81 per cent of the prune acreage had been secured and more was drafting in, and between 75 and 76 per cent of the apricot acreage has been secured, with a possible few more acres to hear from.-Fruit News,

LINER ADS.

(This column free to all members.)

FOR SALE-Leather-colored Italian queens, untested, $1.50 each. Box 514, Sta. B., Pasadena, Cal.

HENRY PERKINS, well-known queen-breeder, will be able to fill orders for tested and untested queens. Send orders care of Miller Box Mfg. Co., 201 N. Ave. 18, Los Angeles.

INSURE YOUR BEES IN LOCATIONS in Los Angeles county or western part of San Bernardino, Riverside or Orange counties. Rate $1.25 per $100 insurance. J. H. WOODWORTH & SON, 206 Chamber of Commerce Bldg., Pasadena, Calif.

QUEENS-Doolittle or Moore strain; hardy, good honey gatherers. Bred from stock that resists disease and produces the most honey. Untested, $1.50 each, six or more, $1.25 each. Fifty or more, $1.00 each. Wayland Crawford, Santa Ana, Calif.

Mr. C. E. Stevens, Claremont, Calif., has Three-Banded Italian Queens to sell: Untested $1.50 each; tested $2.50 each. In lots of 25, untested $35.00. For larger lots, write for special prices. If you will book your orders now, will give liberal discount.

FOR SALE-100 good queens-Italian, Carniolan, Hybrid. Ready for delivery, $1.25 each. Am replacing these with queens of a different strain. E. M. Giddings, Blythe, Calif.

FOR SALE-160 acres 20 miles from Monterey; plenty of water and wild bee-range, small orchard, fenced; abundant rainfall. Will rent for term of years. W. E. Ball, Patterson, Stanislaus Co., Calif.

FOR SALE-400 colonies of bees. E. G. Allen, La Mesa, Calif., San Diego county.