The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, April 18, 1921, Page 6

1 ] { { How Peach Men Learned Co-Operation Market Gambler(s) Practical'lgf tll:"‘l orfi/clad Grow::rls_I to l(B)rganize—What the utcome of the Movement Has Been ~ BY EDWARD M. BOLAND #] OR the next eight years the California probably be free from the influence of gamblers. The peach and fig growers of the state have combined to market their crops co-operatively. The peach men have been organized four years and the fig men are just venturing into organization. After securing for four years a fair return for their labor the peach men are signing for four more years, with an option on their crops for another four. They seem to like it. The greatest enemies of the people who derive their sustenance from the products of the soil are the gamblers who have been able to buy and sell commodities without ever touching them and have been thus able to name the price that will go to the grower in utter disregard of supply and demand. Facing complete ruin from such proceedings for a number of years, and actually in dire straits through the methods employed to keep the' prices paid to growers at a minimum, it was almost an accident that the lesson of co-operation was learned by peach growers in California. In 1912 a grower of peaches in California who dried his product could under ordinary circum- stances get about 6 cents for his finished product. Barring exceptional years, that price would give him an approximate profit of 1 cent per pound, for ex- perienced growers had figured the average cost of harvesting a pound of peaches to be 5 cents. Labor was then a very cheap commodity. There were mortgages on the orchards, but hope springs eternal in the human breast and the or- chardists toiled from season to season in the hope, that they might get an extra cent or two per pound that could be applied to the incumbrance. But in- stead of the rise hoped for, the price of dried peaches began to decline. Lower and lower it sunk until 2% cents per pound was touched, with an av- erage of about 3 cents for the finest grade of dried fruit. “HOW CAN ORGANIZATION HELP?” THE DOUBTING THOMASES ASKED California was producing the finest dried peaches in the world, supplying a-fruit food that was con- tinually eaten by the world at large, yet the grower could not secure enough for the fruit to pay the ex- penses of producing it, not to mention a fair return on his investment or a decent living for himself and his family. Ruin seemed inevitable for a .great majority of the orchardists. Those that could afford it began to grub out their peach trees. But there were thousands who could neither afford to expend the money grubbing out their trees nor secure the funds for trees or vines of another variety of fruit, Cold type can never convey the disappointments and " blasting tragedies of those days. Through 1914, when it seemed as though the world had gone stark mad, the peach growers of California struggled on. With the strength born of dried peach and dried fig markets will ~ This picture shows peaches being dried in the California orchard of J. F. Niswander, manager of the Cal- ifornia Peach & Fig Growers. The open space was formerly a peach orchard, but.trees were grubbed out a few years ago when peach growers were offered less than half the cost of production. The entire or- chard was to have been grubbed out, but Mr. Niswander couldn’t pay for any more work at the . time. Then the peach growers organized and peach orchards became assets instead of liabilities. desperation -and hopelessness they seemed to be plodding to their doom. During these days so-called theorists had been crying out “Organize,” but their cries went un- heeded. “How can organization bring victory?” seemed to be the reasoning of the peach growers, when they were alone familiar with the science of growing peaches and their sales were guided by “the inexorable law of supply and demand.” Be- sides the marketing of the product was in the hands of men always deemed honest. Things came to such a pass after the disastrous year of 1914 that even the most successful growers were hard hit. There are crises in all great activi- ties and the crisis had arrived in the peach indus- ~ try, although few at that moment recognized it. In the hands of the California growers in the spring of 1915 there were some holdover peaches and no attempt was made to move them for they were in- formed by brokers that the crop already in the hands of these middlemen had not as yet been dis- posed of. At-a meeting of representative growers the sug- gestion was made that inasmuch as the raisin grow- ers had organized and seemed in a fair way to achieve the object of their organization, that the peach growers organize along the same lines. But the peach growers were poor—they had had more than their share of rough going and few were in a position to aid in the financing of the projected This story of what happened to Cali- fornia peach growers a few years ago is a striking parallel of what has been “happening to the northwestern wheat growers this last year. Just as the market gamblers told the California peach men that an enormous holdover crop and lack of demand was responsi- ble for low prices for peaches in 1914, so the market gamblers have been tell- ing the wheat producers that “over- production” and lack of demand have been responsible for low prices for wheat. The peach growers by accident found that the stories told them of overproduction and lack of demand were false. They organized and won. The stories that the market gamblers have been telling the wheat growers about overproduction and lack of de- mand are equally false. What are the wheat growers going to do about it? PAGE SIX 8- association. But it is at these times, it seems, that a kindly Providence takes a hand in the proceed- ings. A committee was named to investigate the mar- kets and find if possible a new outlet for the dried peach. The growers believed that the supply was far above the demand. Unless new markets were. found, they believed, the 1915 crop would be unsold with a terrible loss. This committee got into communication with the eastern markets, first to attempt to dispose of the holdover 1914 crop, and found that the eastern buy- ers were ready to take over the entire holdover if a satisfactory price were named. This was the first 5 lesson in co-operative marketing and was an im-° pressive one. A price could not be named until the tonnage was known and the search for the reported holdover peach crop was started. : THE SEARCH FOR THE “HOLDOVER” CROPS AND WHAT FOLLOWED Search as they might, it was found that not enough holdover crop could be obtained to fill one real respectable order. Then the growers came to a new realization. They were the victims of du- plicity, not victims of circumstances. The peach growers proved at this point their true worth. They had been scorched by the fire of ad- versity and were not ready to rush into new fields in a moment of anger after they had discovered how effectually they had been ~deceived. They wanted to know how it had been done and to find the best possible remedy. A meeting was called to place before the growers the exact situation. The first consideration was— “What was wrong all these years? ~ Are we a party to present conditions or are we entirely victims of chicanery ?” They decided that some of the fault lay with themselves and some with the traditions of business that today are rapidly being scrapped. Methods employed in the marketing of peaches, it was" found, had been entirely wrong in the case of dried peaches. They found that the men of the country who had been dealing in dried peaches were as strongly imbued with the gambling spirit as any. one. The future trading in dried peaches had reached such a stage that they were bought and sold even before the blossoms appeared on the trees in the spring in utter disregard of all law of supply and demand. The price had been set in the secret councils of these gamblers even before it was known . that there would be a crop. They agreed to sell dried peaches to the trade at a cost that did not cover production and if the law of supply and de- mand turned the balance in their favor, they were just that much ahead in dollars and cents. The growers realized that one of the temets of