66 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE

last year. was added to this year's large crop, and the two
combined proved too much for the market to stand. Low
prices, asserted to be lower than the cost of production,
resulted, and Canadian and American wheat growers are
now figuring their losses.

 This experience of our friends in California and Canada
 is not a new one for cooperatives. The rice growers and
 tobacco growers of the south have had similar troubles.
 Both flourished a while until over-production piled up its
 excess baggage too heavy for them to carry.
 In the case of Florida. it may be pointed out that we do
 not produce crops that can be kept from one season to the
 next, as with wheat or tobacco or raisins or cotton. It is
 true that Florida's chief products are citrus fruits and vege-
 tables. which are perishables and cannot well be carried
 over. But this fact by no means removes the peril of the
 surplus In reality, it only emphasizes this peril since it
 practically compels the marketing of these perishables as
 soon as they are harvested. A Florida cooperative with
 an excess of oranges or of vegetables, unlike a cooperative
 handling cotton or wheat, would be forced to dispose of
 this surplus at the same time it was selling the normal
 amount demanded by the trade. We would not have the
 chance that a wheat pool might have. viz.. to unload the
 "carry over" at a profit should the year into which it was
 carried prove a year of low yields. Again, with the Florida
 citrus grower there would be the added difficulty of con-
 trolling annual production, since the citrus crop is not
 planned or planted for each separate year. but for all the
 years the groves live and bear.

 What lesson can we get from these troubles?

 Just this: COOPERATIVE MARKETING CANNOT
SUCCESSFULLY HANDLE A SURPLUS SO LARGE AS
TO EXCEED ALL DEMAND.

 We must consider the fact that one invariable result of
successful collective selling by farmers has always been