Growers Hold Tense Meeting Over Fruit Sales

White Bluffs growers decided to market their fruit tonnage this year through the Spokane Fruit Growers company. This was decided at a meeting of the growers at the school house Thursday night. General Manager Parks met the local board of trustees in the afternoon and the growers in the evening. A good, free, frank and open discussion was had which left everybody in a better frame of mind. Some of the blame for the misunderstanding can be attributed to the failure of the auditing department to say that the returns received last week were partial and not final, and some is due to a rather loose method of handling the business both at the warehouse and at the central office. The local board of trustees announced at the meeting that they were going to exercise much more interest than last year, and ask that every complaint be first directed to them. The central office has been reorganized and authority centralized, which will undoubtedly make it much more efficient. Since the returns were received last week, a comparison has been made with those who shipped through other concerns and there was very little difference, if any, in the net price. At the conclusion of the meeting, Mr. Parks said that the Spokane Fruit Growers company would be glad to market the White Bluffs fruit again this year, but that the company did not want a single member to feel that he was forced to do so. It was after Mr. Parks had completed his remarks and left the room, that the growers decided, after a discussion, to stay with the Spokane company this year.