UC BERKELEY MASTER NEGATIVE STORAGE NUMBER 00-75.2 (National version of master negative storage number: CU SNO00075.2) MICROFILMED 2000 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY PHOTOGRAPHIC SERVICE USAIN State and Local Literature Preservation Project Funded in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities REPRODUCTION AVAILABLE THROUGH INTERLIBRARY LOAN OFFICE MAIN LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA BERKELEY, CA 94720-6000 COPYRIGHT The copyright law of the United States (Title 17, United States Code) governs the making of photocopies or other reproductions of copyrighted materials including foreign works under certain conditions. In addition, the United States extends protection to foreign works by means of various international conventions, bilateral agreements, and proclamations. Under certain conditions specified in the law, libraries and archives are authorized to furnish a photocopy or other reproduction. One of these specified conditions is that the photocopy or reproduction is not to be "used for any purpose other than private study, scholarship, or research.” If a user makes a request for, or later uses, a photocopy or reproduction for purposes in excess of "fair use," that user may be liable for copyright infringement. University of California at Berkeley reserves the right to refuse to accept a copying order if, in its judgment, fulfillment of the order would involve violation of copyright law. Southworth. Samuel Seaman | California, for fruit growers and consumptives Sacramento, Calif. 1883 BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD TARGET University of California at Berkeley Library USAIN State and Local Literature Preservation Project Master negative storage number: 00-75.2 (national version of the master negative storage number: CU SN00075.2) Author: Southworth, Samuel Seaman, 1841- Title: California, for fruit growers and consumptives. Imprint: Sacramento, Cal., 1883. Description: 108 p. illus., fold. map. 23 cm. Call numbers: CSL State Lib 634 S72 California Microfilmed by University of California Library Photographic Service, Berkeley, CA Filmed from hard copy borrowed from California State Library FILMED AND PROCESSED BY LIBRARY PHOTOGRAPHIC SERVICE, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY, 94720 DATE: 3/00 REDUCTION RATIO: 8 E&Y &° &, A & & oS Ny LY NW? 7 4 lo | No VV © PM-1 3%2"x4” PHOTOGRAPHIC MICROCOPY TARGET NBS 1010a ANSI/ISO #2 EQUIVALENT I 2m - | ES) I TA = Te I= . ll SH———————— —— ST a —— SASS I ————— ——— mG S—————— A —— Nd HRP Se Tr = 4. se 1 56 6.3 7. 80 9.0 0 Ce weer i Hi HW Hy i i TT ¥ In ’ ’ 1 fi Ti AT 3 | & 1 8 i: 3 ' A - J commen 272... b w 65866... AA 0 2007 0506979 3 1 w Aecession No. Call No. C. 6-3 S ; SACRAMENTO, CAL.: 188 WV; ! | 8 . CALIFORNIA AS IT IS. \I D0 the close of 1879, the writer disposed of his interest an Eastern: fim with a view to improving the condition ve ig came a period when he was forced to scessity of bringing his vacation to a close. No W scene of action, and the matter of determining this was becoming a problem difficult of solution by the mem- of family who were about to sever the ties which had bound m to the old home. It is not such an easy matter for one to mine whither he will go, when his heart is filled with pain thought of cutting loose, perhaps forever, from the scenes | and associations of a lifetime. Humble and faulty though it may be, the home wherein the feet of one’s youth were planted ever ds in his breast a place from which it cannot be dislodged. It was a very cold winter, in a country noted for the severity of its ‘climate ; and as the family group encircled a stove that was rendered exceedingly hot by a generous coal fire on a certain evening of great mercurial depression outside, one thought seemed to be uppermost in the minds of all—the desire for a warmer climate. The limited knowledge possessed by the individual members of the family, of the climatic peculiarities of the vari- ous sections of the continent, was well aired that cold night, and the discussion ended with a proposition by the boy with rather weak lungs, to “remove to California and engage in fruit raising.” The next outgoing mail carried a letter addressed to the editor of a weekly newspaper in California, ordering a few copies of his later issues and asking the favor of a reply to certain questions relative to the climate, fertility and value of the land, etc. In due time, several copies of the newspaper—a Santa Barbara journal —were received, and the same mail also brought the desired let- ter in reply to numerous inquiries. TNE SIR SADT RATIO a ——— SI eS se CALIFORNIA AS IT IS. Those papers were very critically read, re-read, and read over again. Imagination alone can shadow, and but faintly at that, the | interest which centered in this perusal of genuine California litera- ture for the first time. A perfect “bonanza” of climatic domfort suddenly affected the vision of a small party of would-be emigrants. The music of the merry sleigh-bells, the sports and pastimes so pe- culiar to localities favored with an abundance of ice’and snow in * winter, suddenly lost their charms for that family. The young- sters were nearly wild with delight at even the bare possibility of their having such inviting surroundings as were described in those papers from the Pacific Coast, while the older and more sedate looked wise and rather critically discussed the paragraphs about “flowers the year round,” “ oranges and calla lilies in mid-winter,” “ strawberries every month in the year,” “two crops of cereals,” “ beautiful sunshine,” “no malaria,” and “ perfect health.” Notwithstanding (California literature had long had the reputa- tion of being rather florid than otherwise—a reputation which, in many instances, does it an injustice—the writer decided to person- ally investigate the alleged superior advantages of the State, and arrived at its capital city in the spring of 1880. A few months’ residence, some travel, and a great deal of earnest and close obser- vation, satisfied him of the fact that the luscious strawberry was not a perpetual feature of the California landscape ; that malarial dis- eases were not distinguished for their absence entirely, and that the climate was not so paradisean as it had been pictured. And yet, it was so vastly superior to that of most other portions of the con- tinent, that the land of “the '49er” was selected by the wanderer for his future residence, and each succeeding year only adds to the pleasures which the new home has conferred upon those who left snow, ice and cyclones behind them and sought the far-off shores of the Pacific. We were not long in learning that Eastern people had many wrong impressions of the State, especially in regard to those two important industries, agriculture and horticulture. ‘Statements read by Eastern people in California journals and by them set down as samples of California “brag,” are not infrequently found to be incontrovertible facts, when the reader is brought in con- tact with the actual condition of affairs. In our own case, such items as “century plants six feet in height growing out of doors,” CALIFORNIA AS IT 18. were regarded by our Eastern friends as “ yarns ” that could have emanated only from persons of too enthusiastic a disposition, and a description of a calla lily in the front yard, having a dozen blos- soms in February, caused us to be consigned to the ranks of the Sazerac Lying Club. We laugh now at the accusations we once had to endure, and yet we cannot shut our eyes to the fact that there has been altogether too much untruthful “ puffing” of the State by the California press, in the correspondence of "Eastern pa- pers, and in the various books published purporting to give infor- mation concerning the resources and capabilities of this State. As a result of this tendency on the part of some Californians to “gush,” ~ California literature has, in a general way, been looked upon as a too highly colored, not to say unreliable article. Many persons who have come to the State in search of homes have been disap- pointed in not finding it to be the perfect Eden which their imag- inations had pictured. They have encountered many disagreeable things which they perhaps would have hardly noticed had they been led to expect them. In other words, they had been misled, or had misled themselves, taking for granted some hiings which - them were—if not ipodeibles-at least most improbable, Our “glorious climate,” for instance, is imperfectly understood when applied to the State generally, and a settler who has been unfor- tunate in his selection of a location, experiences more or less dis= comfort, and takes particular pains that his friends at home shall be made acquainted with the fact that there is ice and snow here, as elsewhere, and that the mercury has not forgotten its old and and familiar habit of trying to crawl out through the bottom of the thermometer. This man had, of course, planted his stakes in some high mountain “city” or mining district, and his story, naturally enough, would not read much like that sent back by somebody from the valley or foot-hill sections, where the mercury seldom gets as low as thirty degrees above zero; where the grass is greenest in mid-winter; where some of the hardier flowers bloom the year round, and where people wear about the same kind of clothing at all seasons. Another new-comer, who has read descriptions of the latter kind, and who has come here deeply impressed with the wonderful fertility of the great Sacramento Valley, locates where the deceptive bed-rock lies very near the Ls Si pr aC ey Fae Ape rr a a aR ht pe 6 ; CALIFORNIA AS IT IS. surface of the ground. He selects this place because the land has the merit of a low price. He, too, is disgusted with the country and longs to sell out and go back to the home of his childhood. Another follows the advice of some newspaper editor, and selects a place in the famous warm belt accredited to the foot-hills, only to find himself almost submerged in malaria, and life itself a burden, made doubly onerous by the frequent use of liberal doses of quinine. = = tig These are some of the experiences of California life which do not quite accord with the roseate colorings that form such a beauti- ful halo about the pages of the average emigration bureau pam- phlet. The writer, judging from his own experience and that of other persons, sometime since arrived at the conclusion that people in the East should not always be doomed to read but one side of the story of “California as it is,” but should have such plain facts laid before them as will enable them to determine definitely, be- fore going to the expense and trouble of coming to California, whether they would like the country, and if so, what locality would be best suited to their means and tastes, as regards climate, fertility of soil, adaptability to certain products, value, ete.; the average temperature of each locality, facility to market, cost of living, and various other considerations, the value of which are “well known to intelligent and practical orchardists and agricul- turists. : The fact ‘must be recognized that there are drawbacks to be encountered here in California, as elsewhere, although they are comparatively few in number. In presenting the claims of this State as a field for horticulture and viniculture—pursuits which are especially healthful and conducive to the longevity of con- sumptives, owing to the bodily exercise taken under the infi- uence of a mild climate—the difficulties in the way should not be ignored. The author has tried to convey, in the following pages, information that will be found reliable, and wholly free from local prejudice of any sort. As proof of the truthfulness of the latter statement, the author refers to the fact that adver- tisements of all kinds have been refused places in its pages. It is strictly a book of information, and as such it is to be hoped it will find favor among those in whose interest it is published. SACRAMENTO, CAL., 1883. AREA OF THE STATE. . AREA OF THE STATE. correct idea of the topography of California. Some look ~ upon it as a mountainous region well supplied with ravines; others suppose it to be one great valley between two mountain ranges; while all attribute to it perfection of elimate. Neither view is correct, but a modification of each would be nearer the reality, as it possesses the mountains, the ravines, the valleys, and a variety of climates, all the most strongly marked of any State in the Union. _ It. would be impossible to trace any similarity between the dis- tinctive features of the topography of California and those of any of the Eastern States, on account of the vast extent of territory included within its boundaries. The average student of geogra- phy is familiar with the long and narrow space occupied by Cali- fornia on the map of the United States, but, no doubt it would surprise him to learn that it represents a surface larger than New York and Pennsylvania taken together. It might further astonish him to find from governmental statistics, that the Golden State contains an area in square miles equal to the combined area of the six New England States, with that of New York and Pennsy} vania thrown in, yet here are the figures : Lo x Ve few persons living east of the Rocky Mogsitaing have a Maine, square miles. ..:........c.er inne iii rads New Hampshire, SqUATe Miles... ...............ccouenressaersnnns Vermont, square mil Massachusetts, square miles Rhode Island, square miles Connecticut, square miles New York, square miles Pennsylvania, square miles Still more remarkable, perhaps, is the fact that one alone of the fifty-two large counties in this State has an area nearly one thousand miles greater than that of the whole State of Massa- chusetts : Fresno County, Cal., acres Massachusetts, acres Excess in favor of Fresno Moreover, there are several farms, each of which embraces a larger tract of country than the entire State of Rhode Island. California is about 750 miles in length, and from 150 to 320 miles in width. - It stands between the thirty-second and forty- 3 AREA OF THE STATE. vies : Cp for. second parallels of latitude; which accounts, in some measure, the ores in temperature at different points of the coast line. The physical geography of the State presents many features not found in the Eastern States, and to them are due the variety of i familiar to residents, but almost unknown to those EE the Rockies. The following are the divisions of the State with reference to distinctive features: The coast val- leys, the Sacramento valley, the Southern valleys, the Noxthe] valleys, the Sierra Nevada, Coast Range and Sierra Nevada 0 - hills, all formed by the Coast Range and the Sierra Nevadas, which, with their spurs and branches, form the eastern and west- ern boundaries of the State. th | To more clearly represent these physical features, we will Secom. pany the reader from Cheyenne, the half-way point between Omahy and Ogden, at an elevation o a Toot above the level 2 She 3 Vv: i int ountaing are in , sea. At. this point the Rocky 1 he miles further v west the R ridgeiscross- ed at Sher- ' man, eleva- tion, 8,242 ih feet. The 8 descent of the western slope oeccu- pies about thirty hours, i duringwhich time the ele- vation falls L from 8,000 i to 4,500; at this height Ewe pass E = through the == Way Devil's Gate == and reach ~ Ogden and the Great Salt Lake Valley, where we change to the Central Pacific line and continue at about the same elevation (4,340 feet) over a comparatively level run of 150 miles. The road then begins to ascend a division of the Sierra Nevada range, CTOss- ing it at 6,183 feet, and again descending for over 300 miles to an altitude of 3,900 feet, where the final attempt is made to cross the backbone of the continent. By a gradual ascent we arrive at the Summit (elevation 7,017 feet), where we cross the “ridge ” and find ourselves in California, about twenty miles be- . yond the boundary line, 1,671 from Omaha, 104 from Sacramento, ~~ AREA OF THE STATE. 9 and 194 from San Francisco. From Summit Station the average decline to the mile is about ninety-five feet. This descent con- tinues about eighty miles, the engine keeping up steam only for the purpose of stopping the train at the stations. Our first glimpse of California is in February, and the snow- clad mountains around us do not correspond with our preconceived ideas of a California winter. The snow is fifteen or twenty feet deep on the level, and the firs look like dwarfs of some city resi- dence. As we descend, however, the mountains grow less precip- itous, the snow banks diminish in depth and the evergreens _ increase in height. At Colfax, fifty miles from the Summit (2,420 feet elevation), the snow is seen only in patches, and at Auburn, only eighteen miles beyond (elevation 1,300 feet), the beautiful green landscape of a California winter lies before us, as lovely as ever represented. At this elevation, we reach the upper boundaries of the warm fruit belt of the Sierra Nevadas, which extends up and down the range for 300 miles, nearly all of which is by irrigation capable of being utilized for fruit culture. The foot-hill district is here about fifteen miles wide, which is I believe, the average width of this belt. About twenty miles below Auburn lies the great plain of the Sacramento Valley, which extends from Mount Shasta on the North, to the Tehachapi Pass on the South, and to the Coast Range on the West. Its length is 400 miles, and its width varies from fifty to sixty miles. If is watered by two rivers, the Sacra- mento on the north and the San Joaquin (San Wah-keen) on the south, both of which unite and pass through a gap in the Coast Range, into San Pablo Bay. The land adjacent to these rivers is level, but risesin an undulating surface with ever increasing irreg- ularities, until it merges into the lower edge of the foot-hills, Some parts of this valley bear a close resemblance to an Illinois prairie, while others have the additional beauty of large evergreen oaks, giving to thousands of acres the appearance of an immense park. Just outside the limits of the city of Sacramento, is a farm of 40,000 acres, used as a sheep pasture, about one-half of which is densely covered with these gigantic oaks, and is a sample of what can be found in a greater part of the valley. The western, as well as the eastern boundar , has its mountain range. The Coast Range extends the whole length of the State, parallel with and near the coast. It is not as high as the Sierra Nevada range, the average elevation being between 2,000 and 3,000 feet above the sea level. Tts topography and climate are also en- tirely different from those of the latter. Instead of a series of hills and ravines, nearly its whole length is divided by long and narrow valleys, in some instances thirty miles long and from two to three .miles wide, and in others one, two, or three miles long, and half a mile to a mile wide. It is in these valleys that the most fertile soil is generally found. At the southern terminus of the Sacramento Valley, the Coast and Sierra Nevada ranges unite and extend southward in spurs, 10 PECULIARITIES OF CLIMATE. which form a network of ridges extending to the Mexican line. Between these mountains are the plains on which are located the celebrated Southern California Colonies. Mount Shasta welds _ the two ranges on the north, beyond which there are also quite . extensive plains, principally used for pastures, being too cold for fruit. ' Of the total area of the State, only about two-fifths is fit for cultivation, and large portions of this cannot be used with profit without irrigation. There are 100,992,640 acres in the State, of which 43 432,622 acres are yet unsurveyed. The surveyed lands .include about 8,000,000 acres of private grants and 1,500,000 acres of swamp land. At no very distant day the latter will be the best land in the State. It is now known as “Tule land,” and is subject to overflow by the larger rivers and the tides, which will be less severe when hydraulic mining has ceased to become an industry of the State. PECULIARITIES OF CLIMATE. this portion of the Pacific Slope, none has received so much attention from the press or been so eulogized in private cor- respondence, as the “ glorious climate of Californy.” Ever since the discovery of gold caused such a rush of emigration hither, we have heard its praises sung by poets, paragraphists, invalids and emigration agents, until the recital of its excellencies has become. a well-worn tale, and yet its various features are, I think, less understood by non-residents than are other matters of less importance. The climate of Los Angeles is perhaps better known abroad than that of other localities, because its business men have been shrewd enough to appreciate the benefit derived from advertising the good qualities of their semi-tropical surround- ings; while the merchants of other places in the State have unwisely shown but little energy or enterprise in that direction. But the character of the climate is entirely different in the Sac- ramento Valley, from the adjoining foot-hills which occupy a greater area of the State than do the plains. And even in Los Angeles, euphoniously termed the “Paradise of the Continent,” the climate as it is represented to the stranger by the records of “mean” temperature given in the meteorological tables, is much more seductive than actual experience proves it to be. The fact is, the climate of the whole Pacific Coast varies according to the immediate surroundings of the locality, and the average tempera- ture gives a very attractive but totally imperfect report of it as it really is. Thus, the Sacramento Valley has its own particular climate, Southern California an entirely. different one; so, also, ()" all ‘the conditions affecting the well-being of residents in - PECULIARITIES OF CLIMATE, : 11 the Sierra Nevada foot-hills and the Coast Range hi | he Sierrs foot-t e foot-hills h each distinct and dissimilar climates on either =e which in tore Siffre from that of the mountains. ome of the features of these climatic differences withi boundary of the same State can be seen by the in the of the meteorological office in this city, under the supervision of Sergeant Barwick, of the Signal Service Department. The regis- trations were taken about 12 M., on the 15th of each month during 1882. The localities noted are: Red Bluff, in Tehama County, the head of navigation on the Sacramento River and the extreme northern point of the Sacramento Valley : ] nt o y ; Sacramento, the central point, and Visalia, near the southern terminus of this valley ; Los Angeles, just south of the junction of the Sierra Nevada and Coast Ranges; San Diego, on the coast at the extreme southern ond of the State, and San Francisco, about the middle of the coast ine. : TEMPERATURE AT 12 M., 15TH 0 . EACH MonTH. Eng peg ‘+ OjJueWRIOBY | ' "se[eduy sory 61 64 65 69. 72 74 75 ve 72 61 69 53 66 58 67 TEREIIRGF LHS | -oosrousiy weg It will be seen by the above table, that the tem i ) erature t affected by the latitude here as it is on the Atlantic oath but rather in the opposite direction. East of the mountains, the further south one goes the higher he finds the temperature. It is the converse in California. Red Bluff is over 600 mil San Diego, yet the mercury stood fifteen degrees ath the latter place, and ten degrees higher than at Sacramento (200 miles south), on the date mentioned in the table. Neither is the thermometer governed by the longitude to the extent observed in Eastern States. San Francisco and Sacramento are at nearly the same distance from the equator, have about the same altitude and are but ninety miles apart, yet, when Sacramentans are hav- ing their warmest summer weather, San Franciscans are going about with the collars of their coats turned up; but in the winter When ie tien. 3 Bacoanionss don their seal-skin sacques, their sisters at the Bay enjoy their shoppi i i bered by wraps or heavy Uathing PPIHIL CXSIIS Sane rT NRE Reo res Bo Fos eT a ES “ w - : - Sa i i DX nr PECULIARITIES OF CLIMATE. MEAN TEMPERATURE. | 7 51 45 EEBARRIGVIRE EIS SRRETERT LADS BF ARF ALE | “oosroues ung 45 55 57 61 61 78 73 75 70 61 61 49 An inspection of the preceding tables should convince any | reader, no matter how deeply impressed he may be by accounts of the mildness of the California climate, that the same deserip- tion will not apply to all parts of the State, and that the climate of no particular locality can be taken as a criterion of the others. For instance, in one valley alone there is a variation of ten degrees in mid-summer, the central portion being coolet than either of the ends. This is due, in a measure, to the same cause which gives Los Angeles its equable climate ; viz: the influence of the coast winds. : At Red Bluff and Visalia the two ranges of mountains are close together and prevent the ingress of cooling winds, while at San Francisco a break in the Coast Range allows the coast breezes to penetrate the valley and follow the river many miles into the in- terior, above and below Sacramento. The extremes of heat and cold are not shown by either of the foregoing tables and, from the incomplete knowledge to be obtained from records of mean tem- perature, the real severity of our climate 1s misunderstood outside of the State. The cold is never intense here in California, but still it is keenly felt, owing to the predominance of warm weather. In all the valleys the heat is often very great; in some excessive, but death from sun-stroke is unknown. The lowest temperature experienced for many years was that of the past winter, when, in one instance, the mercury fell to twenty-two degrees above zero, even in the warmest parts of the State. The following statistics, taken from the meteorological reports furnished by our own Sig- nal Service officer, Sergeant Barwick, may be of interest, as giving a comparative view of the extremes of temperature in various parts of California and the United States. In each case the num- ber of days above ninety degrees is given, for the year 1879: “ At San Diego the thermometers are nineteen feet above the ground, and as in all cases, face the North. There was one day PECULIARITIES OF CLIMATE. 13 in May with temperature above 90°, the highest being 91°; one day in June, the highest 93°; one day in September, the highest 92°; three days in October, the highest 92°; lowest, 32° “in December. Pili “At Los Angeles the thermometers are thirty-seven feet above ~ the ground, and in May showed two days above 90°, the highest being 97°; three days in June, the highest 103°; two days in August, the highest 97.5°; four days in September, the highest 101°; five days in October, the highest 96.5%; the lowest was 30° and occurred in December. : “At Visalia the thermometers are twenty-two feet above the ground, and registered one day in May above 90°, the highest be- ing 97°; twenty days in June, the highest 109°; thirty days in July, the highest 107°; twenty-eight days in August, the highest 108°; eighteen days in September, the highest 102°; two days in October, the highest 95.5°; lowest temperature, 23° in December. There were twenty-eight days in succession when the thermome- | ter recorded 100° degrees and over, that time being from J uly 22d to August 18th, 1879. “ At San Francisco the thermometers are forty-eight feet above the ground, and during 1879 there were no days on which the thermometer registered a temperature above 90°. The highest uring the year was 89° in August, and the lowest 34°, in Decem- r. “ At Sacramento the thermometers are thirty-eight feet above the ground, and during the month of May, 1879, recorded a tem- perature above 90° only one day, the highest being 91°; nine days in June, the highest 100°; eleven days in July, the highest 100° ; seventeen days in August, the highest 103°; ten days in Septem- ber, the highest 96°; the lowest was 25°, in December. “ At Red Bluff the thermometers are twenty-one feet above the ‘ground, and registered one day in May, 1879, temperature above 90°, the highest being 96.5°; nineteen days in June, the highest 104°; twenty-two days in July, the highest 110°; twenty-six days in August, the highest 108°; six days in September, the highest 103°; lowest temperature, 25° in December. There were twenty- seven consecutive days when the temperature was 100° and over, the time being from July 23d to the 18th of August, which corre- sponds exactly with the hot spell of weather during the same year at Visalia. “We find the number of days during the heated season on which a temperature above 90° was reached in California, to be, at San Diego, six; Los Angeles, sixteen; Visalia, ninety-nine days; San Francisco, none; Sacramento, forty-eight; Red Bluff, ninety-five days. “We will now show how the thermometrical record for the same year (1879) stood in the principal Eastern cities : “At Boston the thermometers are one hundred and fifty-six feet above the ground, and they registered one day in May above 90°, the highest being 93°; three days in June, the highest he 3 pee i i n i Eo k: p SE nt 3 Hl 4 Ws vt a : AB Bo i: iL: CH E Io ‘ 4 oS - 3 N b Bi A ’] b 4 E re : iy = b i ke. : a wo : | fi 8 fit ey be Ce Ek ¥ 3 4 : . : 4 { 4 Ei ; 11 H 3 18] ki it : i he iH i : i Pe ¢ BE [£] Ea gh RY: i H Fo @ Ae ; 5: { a, Ha 0 + HRY a ih I p: el & ot Hii] 1 ! ; Ih: i : ii ij i x ih fil . ’ HH iH i i ¥ Hh Hi iH Ho $ § § fe tH 0 ia! ¥ gu i) iH . 8 p 4 3! i Rites - $l {i 3 Qa ! 0 £ His 11 oo it if ¥ y hu i g ite } i £1 iH {fie i LR : 1 ’ 5 = i at I iy i i § 8 i {> i ! i i si . i ! Tt | i a 14 PECULIARITIE® OF CLIMATE. 96 v o hi ; in August, 96°: five days in July, the highest 94°; three days in ir 95° ; making a total of twelve days. * . . . hun- « At New York the elevation of the thermometers is one dred rt dial feet above the ground, and during the year 1879 there were only four days with a temperature above 90° ing in July. : opis the thermometers are ninety-nine feet above round, and showed one day in May above 90°, the highest 91°; oe days in June, the highest 93°; four days in July, the highest 96°: two days in August, the highest 93°; a total of nine days. «’At Baltimore the thermometers are thirty-three feet above round, and registered one day in May above 90° the highest Sd: three days-in June, the highest 94°; eight days in July, fhe highest 99°: two days in August, the highest 92°; making a tota of fe days. uJ Sig eo the thermometers are sixty-seven feet above the ground, and registered sixteen days in J uly above 90 j 3he highest 98°; one day in August, the highest 96°; making a tota days. Lh | yon the thermometers are sixty-nine feet above the round, and registered above 90°; three days in July, the highest 53° one day in August, the highest 91°; making a total of four Toy At St. Louis the thermometers are one hundred and four feet ‘above the ground, and registered four days in May above 90°, the i ing 91°; five days in June, the highest 95°; sixteen Jighess pi highest 100°: seven days in August, the highest 99°; making a total of thirty-two days. : i “Now comes the place that “takes the cake,” and must be the home of the salamander. That place will be known as Pheenix, A. T., and must be near the entrance to Hades. The elevation of the thermometers above the ground is only four feet, and they registered in April, 1879, seven days above 90° the highest being °. twenty-five days in May, the highest 100°; twenty-nine ul i iy the I must 106°; thirty-one days in July, the highest 110°; thirty-one days in August, the highest 109°; twenty-seven days in September, the highest 107"; four days in October, the highest 96°; making a total of 154 days. InJ wpe, 1879, at the same place, there were nineteen days in which the thermometer ranged from 100° to 106°; twenty-seven days in July, ranging from 100° to 110°; twenty-six days in August, ranging from 100° to 109°; twenty days in September, ranging ° to 107°.” : iy ; 3 from eb States the south wind is warm ; in California it is a cool wind in Summer, and the mercury attains its maximum height only when the dry, hot blasts come sweeping down from the north. These “northers” in Summer-time have about as much terror for Californians as for Eastern people in Winter. When the north wind blows here everybody has the blues, head- aches prevail, and the nervous system becomes generally dis- turbed. It causes vegetation to shrivel as if stricken by the PECULIARITIES OF CLIMATE, 15 ys ‘ blighting breath of an African sirocco. It has been known ~ to kill the young sprouts on peach trees in two hours; young apples have been literally cooked by it on the exposed sides ; entire fields of wheat have been blighted by three days’ expo- sure to it when the seed was in the milky state preceding its ripen- ing. Even the birds of the air, and the beasts of the field suffer from these scorching, electric winds. And yet, we are told that these much dreaded blasts that come sweeping across the “alkali plains are really the salvation of the human race on this side of the continent; that without them vegetation would grow 8o rank that there would result decay and a consequent poison- ing of the atmosphere, giving rise to all sorts of malarious dis- orders. It is rarely that we have breezes from this quarter for more than three days at a time during the Summer months, and these spells are usually followed by a week or ten days of that delightful weather which has won for the California climate its great popularity. At such times the mercury ranges from 50° to 75°, according to local conditions. 2 Another feature of our climate—perhaps the one most desery- ing of consideration by persons thinking of locating in Califor- nia with the purpose of engaging in fruit growing—is the varia- tion of the rainfall in different parts of the State. Drawing a line from Shasta on the north, through the whole length of the Sacramento and San Joaquin Valleys, over the lower portions of the Sierra Nevada and Coast Range into and through Southern California—say to San Diego—we find the following gradations “of humidity : : Inches of Elevation. : Annual Rainfall, Taking the places on about the same parallels from west to east, we find even a greater variation, owing principally to more frequent and marked variations in the altitude. In the foothills near Sacramento the increase in rainfall is one inch for each one hundred feet ascent; about Red Bluff, one and one-half inch, and only one-half inch in the lower part of the valley : Inches of : Localities. Altitude. Annual Rainfall 16 PECULIARITIES OF CLIMATE. In explanation of the causes to which these effects are attribu- table, Dr. J. P. Widney, of Los Angeles, says in an article from his pen published in the Overland Magazine of November last : &¢ ‘ e most strongly marked feature in the physical geography . of California, and the one which at once catches the eye of the observant traveler, is the fact that its mountains for hundreds of miles run parallel with the coast, and that there are two of these great chains, one rising abruptly almost from the sea line, like a long wall, with only here and there a shallow coast valley, as at Santa Cruz, lying outside the range and facing directly upon the ocean. This is known as the Coast Range. The other is the great uplifted crest of the Sierra Nevada, which, for hundreds of miles, in an unbroken chain, forms the horizon line upon the east, crossed only at long distances by some rugged pass leading to the interior basin of the continent. This range, with its great altitude, its heavy snows and its immense condensing power, is the source of all the important rivers of California. From it come the Sacramento and San Joaquin, with their tributaries, and in Southern California the Los Angeles, the San Gabriel and the Santa Ana. 0 “These two ranges of mountains divide the lands of the State into two classes of widely different climatic features—the humid coast valleys, lying outside of the Coast Range, facing upon the ocean, and marked by a comparatively great precipitation of moisture and slight evaporation; and the more arid interior val- leys, lying between the two ranges, and characterized by just the reverse—a light rainfall and an excessive evaporation. ; “The great interior basin of California, the Sacramento and San Joaquin, together with several smaller valleys, as the Santa Clara and Napa, formed by a local splitting of the coast moun- tains into two ranges, drains outward to the ocean through the gap which forms the inlet to San Francisco Bay, while through the same gap flows back the cool air current which gives the daily sea breeze to these valleys. “The Winter rain-current, which is a southwesterly wind blow- ing in from the sea, has to cross this Coast Range before it can reach and water the dry interior valleys. According to a well known law, it parts with much of its moisture in. climbing the elevation, giving a climate upon the ocean face of the range, damp and foggy—home of the redwood and fern, both of which are types of vegetation flourishing only in a comparatively humid atmosphere. After crossing this range, the r#in-current thus deprived of a large portion of its moisture, passes on to give a lighter rainfall upon the level plains of the interior, until it reaches the tall line of the Sierra, where, with the cold of a still greater elevation, the remaining moisture is wrung out of the clouds; giving precipitation largely in excess of that which fell in the valleys; and again we find forests of dense growth, yet of a type that does not, like the redwood, need the constant hu- midity of the ocean air, which, after the Winter rains have ceased, PECULIARITIES OF CLIMATE. 17 rolls in a daily fog to the seaward face of the Coast Range. How thoroughly the Sierra has accomplished the remaining work of condensation is shown in the almost hopeless aridity of the plains lying eastward from its base, and to which the now dessi- ~ cated rain-wind next passes. “This. Winter rain-current in its sweep inland passes over the crest of the Coast Range in a more or less continuous sheet; yet, like a vast @rial river, which it is, it avails itself of every break and depression of the range to pour through in still denser volume. And it is opposite these breaks and depressions of the range that we find the line of greatest rainfall in the interior val- leys, as the lower and more humid portion of the current has at. these points been able to reach the interior without having its moisture wrung out in crossing the range. It is in this way that v the Sacramen- to coungry, = with its river valley leading out to the ® ocean through See swf the break in the Coast B Range which forms the en- trance to San Francisco Harbor, has a greater rain- = fall and a more | humid climate | than the plains ® which lie be- b hind the range. | Whoever has stood and watched the evening fog roll in at the Golden Gate, seeking, like a river flood, first the low level of the water-ways, and then the broken passes in the hills, will readily understand how the southeast currents of the Winter obey the same general law. “The comparatively great rainfall of the country north of the Summit of Sierras. i 943 miles from San Francisco—Altitude 10,000 feet. ~ Sacramento, as contrasted with the plains upon the south in the San Joaquin and Tulare country, is to be attributed to the same cause ; for while the main volume of the rain current entering through the break and the adjacent depressions of the range west of San Francisco Bay, and then, following the water-level back to Sacramento, keeps on with its original northeasterly sweep to the section north and east of the river, any portion of the cur- 9 Ee Ee SS So pa CR ET SA Se ts Fos WORRIES 18 : PECULIARITIES OF CLIMATE. rent seeking to turn aside to the level plains upon the south must double back upon itself and struggle against the drier portion of the same southwest wind, which has, in the general sweep, after losing a large portion of its moisture in crossing, forced its way over the higher line of the same Coast Range south of San Fran- cisco, and passed on directly inland. Hence the rainfall of the country north and east of Sacramento increases, while upon the south, although the land drains by the same outlet to the sea, it steadily diminishes. “If one were asked how the physical features of California might be changed to give a moister and more productive climate to the interior valleys, he would probably reply : “(1.) Drop the Coast Range of mountains down until it is practically obliterated. By doing this the great Winter rain cur- rent would be no longer obstructed in its landward flow, neither would it be robbed of a portion of its moisture, as now, before it had fairly left the coast line, and so precipitation would be in- creased. Also, with this barrier removed the ocean fogs would no longer be walled out, but would pass inward over the land, and add their portion of moisture, while by giving the humid ocean air ready access, in the shape of these fogs and the damp, cool daily sea breeze, evaporation would be checked, and a dry, hot air no longer greedily suck up the surface moisture of the soil. “(2.) Keep up the elevation of the Sierra, but bring it slightly. nearer to the coast, so that it may condense all the moisture pos- sible from the rain currents, and its melting snows and its rivers . may be available for irrigating the plains lying between it and the ocean. ; “(3.) Wall the land in upon the northwest with mountains, so as to shelter it from the drying winds that now sweep over it, in Winter checking and retarding, by their chill, the growth of veg- etation, and in Summer parching it up and blasting the tender grain. If, in addition to these changes, the Winter could be made slightly warmer, so that vegetation should not be retarded by the cold, then the whole duration of the rainy season would be a period of growth, and so the season practically lengthened. In making the reply thus itemized under these four sections, one would be describing exactly what has taken place in Southern California... “Out of the broken confusion of the Tehachapi and Tejon mountains, where the Sierra and the Coast Ranges seem to be- come inextricably entangled, the Sierra at length emerges, and, “skirting the Mojave Desert upon the west, turns eastward under the local name of the Sierra Madre as the northern wall of the Los Angeles and San Bernardino country; then turning again southward along the western rim of the Colorado Desert, goes on to form the backbone of the peninsula of Lower California. A stray fragment of the Coast Range rises again for a while, under the name of the Santa Monica Mountains; joins the dividing ridge between the westerly plains of the Los Angeles country and the San Fernando Valley; breaks down entirely where the San PECULIARITIES OF CLIMATE. 19 Fernando Valley opens into the Los Angeles, giving outlet to the Los Angeles River, then rises as a low, irregular range of hills between Los Angeles and the San Gabriel country—nhills having an elevation of only two or three hundred feet; breaks down again completely after a few miles, where the broad valley of the San Gabriel comes out from the Sierra, irrigating with its waters the fertile, low-lying lands of El Monte and Los Nietos; then the hills rise again as a broken range, gradually attaining to a height in scattered peaks of one or two thousand feet, but torn asunder where the Santa Ana, coming from its source in the San Bernardino portion of the Sierra, and watering upon its way the San Bernardino and Riverside countries, bursts through to the ‘lands of Santa Ana and Anaheim and the coast plain, and on to the sea. This breaking down of the Coast Range throws the ~ whole valley system of Southern California, known collectively as the Los Angeles country, open to the sea, making it practically a vast system of coast valleys, with the Sierra as a background ; and it is to be classed with the Humboldt and Santa Cruz coun- ties in climate, but from the sheltering mountains and the more southern latitude milder in temperature, and in extent upon an infinitely larger scale. About three thousand square miles of level valley land open out to the sea at this point. The sharp trend eastward of the coast line south of Point Concepcion also brings the sea nearer to the Sierra, making its influence more felt, while the deflection of the Sierra from a north and south direc- tion to almost due east turns it into a huge barrier, raised directly across the path of the cold north wind, which sweeps the upper portion of .the State. Under the shelter of its peaks, ranging in elevation from six to eleven thousand feet, these southern valleys nestle, looking from the snow-clad crests above them out toward the warm southern sea. “The working of the same law may be seen, although upon a more limited scale, in the smaller valleys which surround and drain into San Francisco Bay. Napa Valley, lying upon the north, with its mouth opening at an acute angle toward the in- coming rain-current of the Golden Gate, hardly knows what it is to have a failure of crops through lack of moisture; while Santa Clara Valley, upon the south, and opening out toward the north, rather in the direction toward which the rain current is going than toward that from which it is coming, has a much lighter ‘rainfall, and suffers from drouth more frequently. The lower and moister stratum of the rain-current, entering at the Golden Gate, in order to reach the Santa Clara Valley would have to double back upon itself, and battle with the direct current from the south, which, after parting with enough of its moisture to water the Santa Cruz country, has already forced itself, a partly dessicated wind, over the mountains of the Coast Range through what is known as the Santa Cruz Gap.” BR es es en I OUR FRUIT GROWERS’ SURROUNDINGS. OUR FRUIT GROWERS SURROUNDINGS. O much has been written within the last few years about Cali- S fornia, the wonderful growth of her soil products, etc, that there is scarcely a county east of the Rocky Mountains in which there are not more or less persons who are looking toward « the Golden State” as a place for future residence. Persons of wealth are constantly arriving in California and purchasing plats of ten, twenty, or forty acres, which they proceed at once to plant in vines and fruit trees preparatory to the erection of residences for future homes. But the present rapid influx of settlers is not wholly confined to the wealthier classes. Individuals of mod- erate means are also coming here and daily making purchases of land, while a still larger class of immigrants: are keeping real estate agents and immigration societies busy answering ques- tions concerning the value and location of lands suitable for fruit culture, their accessibility to market, etc. Among the lat- ter class of new-comers are many men who have always occupied salaried positions, and who have managed to save up a few hun- dred dollars with the purpose of freeing themselves from the trying condition attendant upon city life, and realizing their long delayed hope of some day enjoying the independence and bodily health which generally falls to the lot of the. suceessful horticulturist. ; It was to meet the requirements of this class of ‘persons, more than any other, that first suggested to the writer the advisability of placing this publication before the people of the Eastern States. Too many have already imbibed the erroneous impression that California is a desirable place for the rich man only; that the industrial and middle classes have little chance here, because so many large tracts of land have been “gobbled up,” as we term it, by speculators. It is true that California was once nearly covered by immense Mexican grants, the titles to which were legalized by the ratification of certain treaties following upon the heels of the Mexican war. And, while on this subject of Mexican grants, it may be interesting to Eastern people to learn how some of these immense grants of land were secured in early days, when the descendants of the Montezumas held sway over this favored portion of the continent. Away back-—somewhere about the year 1846—there arrived on this coast a tow-headed, inexperienced youth from one of the frontier States, who had somehow acquired a slight knowledge of carpentering. He hap- pened in one of the most fertile and picturesque valleys in the Coast Range just in time to assist some natives in constructing a residence for one of the numerous Alcaldes, or local officers, and for his services he was awarded a grant of three leagues of ¢ OUR FRUIT GROWERS SURROUNDINGS. 21 land at the head of navigation on a stream that ran through the valley and emptied into San Pablo Bay. Five years later a county seat was located on this tract, and within ten years from the day he shingled the roof of that Mexican official’s house, our tow-headed youth found himself the possessor of a thriving American settlement, thousands of head of live stock, a growing town, and a half-Mexican wife who was heiress to one or more of these large grants in that same county. ; To be sure, most of these old Mexican grants have been divi- ded up, and like all the other wealth of the indolent Spaniard, are now owned by wide-awake Americanos. Of the few of these original grants that remain intact, one embraces a small portion of Sacramento County. A brisk ride of less than ten minutes from the State Capitol building will land one on an unbroken tract of 44,000 acres, a principality in extent, which has but two residences within its broad expanse of country, and these the homes of herders. Its principal products are sheep, to which may be added Shetland ponies, hop-poles and game. Sih But, while it ig true that in California there are still many large land-holdings, the rise in value caused by the impetus given to fruit culture by the profits obtained, has made many of them too valuable for stock ranges or wheat raising, and they are now - being divided up. Those who have acquainted themselves with the real condition of affairs will, I think, bear the writer out in the assertion that, there is not to-day a State in the whole Union that offers equal inducements to persons of small means who are not afraid of work. Generally, the more Nature does for man- kind, the less assistance she receives; but this rule can hardly be applied to California and her citizens; for, notwithstanding all the fabulous stories of “rapid growth under the influence of a mild climate,” “ two crops of cereals in one season,” “tickling the soil to see it laugh with fatness,” the plain unvarnished truth is, that the California fruit-grower is ‘obliged to work harder and to spend more hours in his orchard than does his Eastern breth- ren, but at the same time he is more certain of a crop—both of fruit and insects. In the East the fruit-grower is excluded from his orchard during the Winter, while on this coast he is employed the greater part of that season in cultivating and pruning his trees and vines. The climatic advantages, however, which enable him to continue his labors at all times in the year, also afflict his plants with two broods of insects instead of one. From this, it -will be seen that only the workers can succeed in the land of the Argonauts. Therefore, since labor is the capital of the poor man, he should invest it in California, where there is not only room for its employment, but also the advantage of an earlier and surer return for that labor. The trees and vines arrive at the state of bearing two or three years earlier here than they do in the Eastern States, and the absence of cold Winters insures greater certainty of a crop, provided always that wisdom has governed him in the selection of his field of labor. The Eastern man who comes to California with Eastern ideas HR RO AAS A 87 Ts A ARE wih - ERR I cian 22 OUR FRUIT GROWERS’ SURROUNDINGS. of acreage, must. have a very long and well filled purse if he wishes to purchase the best land. The number of acres is not the key to prosperity here, but rather a small farm under good cultivation. I have known Eastern farmers who have spent the best part of a lifetime on a quarter section, and, although they worked hard and practiced the strictest?economy, scarcely ever netted a $100 profit per year. It took half of the time to clear the land and build fences before the farm could be worked advan- tageously, and the profits realized in the other half were required for the erection of buildings necessary for the comfort of the family and live, stock. Perhaps those farmers were content in that one perpetual grind for existence, but how barren is a life devoid of all such luxuries as books, travel, and a few days vaca- tion annually. Consider, on the other hand, the condition of the farmer in the valley lands of this State. Nature prepared the way for his plow, and gave the germinating quality to his soil. Instead of snow and ice for a third of the year, mild Winters with frequent showers provide excellent pasturage for his stock. Expensive buildings are luxuries, not necessities, for a house of one thickness of boards with the cracks well battened will serve as a residence for several years, and a shed with a rain-proof cov- - ering will afford sufficient shelter for his horses. He sets out his trees and vines in that most enjoyable of Winter months—Febru- ary—and as, unburdened with coat, gloves or comforter, he moves about his occupation in the inspiriting south breeze, he must consider with satisfaction how much. more agreeable is his situa- tion than that of his Eastern friends who, shivering, await the coming of Spring. And if the buildings upon his farm be only temporary structures, he can console himself with the reflection that they will be replaced by more comfortable quarters after a few years, when he derives from his present labors an annual income of ten per cent net on a valuation of $1,000 to $1,500 an . acre. The reader may relegate this paragraph to the class of literature emanating from too florid an imagination I can’t help it if he does. I only ask him to continue the perusal of this work for proof of a fact that has been demonstrated by practice in thousands of instarices, that small fruit farms and vineyards of from ten to fifty acres of the best land in Califor- nia, when properly cultivated, will return a clear profit annually of from $100 to $150 per acre. THE FOOTHILL VINEYARDS. THE FOOTHILL VINEVARDS. HE foothills of the Sierras occupy the whole western slope of that beautiful, verdure-clad range of mountains. They can ~ 7 be seen from all parts of the Sacramento Valley, rising apparently to one-half the height of the range, and perpetually covered with foliage. After leaving the valley, the first intimation we receive of them is in a slightly undulating surface, and, as we journey upwards, the gently rolling ground becomes more and more hilly, and evergreen chaparral begins to show itself on all sides. Further eastward larger hills appear, and the eye feasts on beautiful shades of landscape formed by the mixture of small pines and firs with the chaparral, and still further on the lofty mountain pine and gigantic evergreen oak lend their grandeur and coloring to the scene. Onward and upward we go, following the serpentine track of the railway, over bridges, through cuts and ravines, until we reach an altitude of 1,500 feet, when these beautiful foothills attain the height and assume the rugged grandeur of real mountain scenery. How refreshing to the resi- dents of the valleys, is a retreat to the pure air and freedom of these mountains during the heated months of Summer! Starting from the valley at an elevation of 160 feet above the sea level, and 130 feet above Sacramento City, we find the foot- hill belt ascending for about twenty miles, at an average grade of seventy feet per mile. Over this area, or the greater part of it, can be grown the stone fruit, for which this State is becoming noted throughout the length and breadth of two continents. But while the whole of this section is called the foothill belt, only a portion of it is known as “the warm belt” of the foot- hills, which Eastern people have lately read so much about. As this region is a miniature representative of the general features of the whole State, it is also similarly affected by frosts. There- fore, in the frosty season a fruit farm containing hills and ravines will not be affected alike over its whole surface, as the more ele- “vated portions may escape a frost which has done material injury in the low lying sections. Moreover, a vineyard situated on a hill would, in all probability, he untouched by a frost which would destroy the vines in a ravine fifty or one hundred feet below. So it is with the upper and lower extremities of this belt; the lower portions are liable to frosts, owing to the fact that the dew point 1s more easily reached in the valleys, and the higher portions because of their proximity to the snow line. Hence, the inter- mediate points are the most desirable for fruit raising, and expe- rience has demonstrated that a belt running along the hills at a height of from 700 to 1,100 feet, is more free from early and late frosts than the portions above or below it. On the Central Pacific 24 THE FOOTHILL VINEYARDS, ‘the center of this warm fruit belt is found at Newcastle, at an elevation of about 900 feet. | It was in these foothills just thirty-four years ago that gold was discovered, and all through this most beautiful portion of California, are still to be seen the little monuments of gravel resting on a hard-pan foundation from which every spoonful of soil has been washed away. Through every large and small ravine did the immortal 49ers march with their pick and their pan ; from the lowest to the highest ravine did this roving and rollicking band of Argonauts pursue their search for gold, and not a blade of grass is yet to be found in their wake. They washed and sluiced off the best soil in the State, and only cycles of centuries can fill up the paths over which they have trod. Even the ravines did not confine them, for many of the hills still exhibit great ugly red scars to perpetuate the memory of a vora- r direction or condition it could be found. They § | were not to blame. They = came here not to build up a “state,but rath- er to tear it down. They came not here to stay. Five years at most was to be giv- en to rifling the Golden State of her treasures; then they would return to the old = FE homestead State Line. and live a life 276 miles from San Francisco--Altitude 5,130 feet 0 f luxury the rest of their days. They looked upon this whole foothill region as of a little less value than an Arizona desert, as far as the sur- face was concerned. The soil was red in color, gravelly in nature, and not very deep, and how evergreen oaks and pines could grow on such soil without a drop of water, for seven or eight months in a season, was a mystery which the pioneers could only account for in one way: ‘ Devilish poor soil will grow pines, and oaks which won’t shed their leaves are pretty poor trash any way.” In fact, not one of them would have given an ounce of dust for a whole township. They made the long and weary trip across the plains in search of gold, and every mother’s son of them THE FOOTHILL VINEYARDS. 25 washed and sluiced away, ever thinking of the glad time to come when they would have made their “ pile ;” and even now there is many an aged father or mother anxiously awaiting the return of the dear, dear boy, who left them so many long years ago. They were once the flower of the village; their absence left a void in the social circle which was felt for many a day. The girls they left behind them lived on in hopes for many years, then took up ° with the younger generation, and, remembering that they were not widows, got married. After many months came straggling let- ters, then quills of black sand very slightly mixed with a coloring of gold dust, purchased from a luckier comrade. Tidings from ~ the boys became less frequent, and finally ceased altogether. Where are they now? Some of them are dead, some of them still live. I have had occasion to hunt up a few of them, and I can only advise the white-haired, tottering parent, who has not heard from the boy in all these long and weary years, to cherish the memory of him as he was, not as he is. He is still hunting for “pockets,” and expect yet to “strike it rich.” He is known here as a pioneer prospector, and he will soon pass to that bourne from which come no tidings. Many of these unsuccessful miners had cabins, but as luck was . against them, it was a pretty hard pull to get something to eat. As long as the placers paid well, they continued to pay twenty- five cents apiece for valley peaches and one dollar for a water- melon. But, after a while the gravel was all washed out, and the unfortunate gold hunter turned the water of the mining ditch upon the little patch of ground surrounding his cabin, compelled by sheer necessity to raise vegetables for home consumption. Under the influence of water the growth of everything was won- derful, in the red soil of the hillsides as well as in the more allu- vial earth of the ravines. ; ; Gradually these disappointed miners began to discover that this soil would produce something more profitable than chap- arral and poison-oak, if they supplied it with moisture. Little by little they increased the size of their gardens and planted a few fruit trees, getting water from thé mining ditches, which were now supplying the motive power of quartz mills instead of serv- ing the original purpose—placer mining. The quondam miners raised their own fruit and vegetables, and sold the surplus to their neighbors. Towns were springing up in the mountains wherever quartz mills were set in motion, and the demand for fruit increased in consequence. As the adaptability of these foot- hills to fruit culture became more fully known, men of business foresight bought the mining ditches, enlarged them, and extended their usefulness. Blessings in disguise had fallen on the pioneer, and once more, hopeful dreams of a visit to the old home filled his mind as he increased his acreage. To-day he is the fortunate possessor of the well known “ California fruit ranch,” and never tires of telling how much more valuable is the soil remaining, than that which was washed away. The annexed paragraph from NT Ae Se Pr a a eke 3% ERR . 26 THE FOOTHILL VINEYARDS. the Auburn Herald of the present season, is illustrative of the facts above mentioned. : “Mr. J. A. Elliott sold out his fruit ranch the other day to Mr. Asa Smith, recently from the East, for $10,000. The place con- sists of seventy acres of land, a little less than a mile from New-- castle Station, thirty acres of which is in fruit and vines, fifteen acres in hay, and the balance in a comparatively wild state. Mr. Elliott bought the squatter’s right to the land a little less, we believe, than ten years ago, for $250, and has since paid $350 more to the Railroad Company for a perfect title. Without any capital to start on but his own labor, he has placed himself in easy circumstances and made his place worth $10,000. This he has done in the foothills of Placer, and his experience is better evidence than a column of generalities of the capabilities of this foothill region, and the opportunities it offers to the economical, industrious and persevering.” Newcastle is a small village on the Central Pacific Railroad, at an elevation of 969 feet. It is beautifully located about the cen- ter of the warm fruit belt, affording a view of the whole belt and of the Sacramento Valley below. It is especially attractive to ~ persons of small means, and is the market for the products of a large number of orchards; small fruits, peaches and apricots being chiefly cultivated. The hills and valleys for miles are dot- ted on every side with homes which indicate the prosperity of the owners. There is considerable railroad and government land a few miles distant that can be secured at a low figure, say from two dollars and a half to ten dollars an acre. This land is covered with chaparral and some fir, both of which can be easily removed. It is very warm in Summer, and not uncomfortably cold in Winter. It is the home of the peach, the apricot and the grape, and in some localities the orange is cultivated successfully although it will never become one of the prominent fruits in this vicinity. What has been done at Newcastle, can be accomplished at a similar elevation for nearly fifty miles north or south. Auburn, five miles above and 400 feet higher, is the county seat. It is at the upper edge of the warm belt, and presents the same claims for fruit growing as Newcastle, and also has a wide repu- tation as a health resort for consumptives. Above Auburn there has not been so much progress in fruit raising as below, owing to the fear of frosts and want of irrigating ditches, but at present there is an inclination to the opinion that grape growing will be more successful several hundred feet higher, from the fact that the rainfall is heavier. Springs are abundant, and irrigation is not a necessity. There are a few vineyards here in full bearing and the yield has been so satisfactory that quite an impetus has been given to the enterprise, and many vineyards have been set out during the past Winter. Colfax, situated eighteen miles above Auburn, at an elevation of 2,421 feet, is the business cen- ter of this section. In the immediate vicinity of Colfax there are special attrac- tions for New England people. The scenery reminds them of I RAH ANT MNCS THE FOOTHILL VINEYARDS. 27 . the White Mountains. The Winters are not cold, although - the snow often lies on the ground for several days at a time. In Summer it is much cooler than localities farther down, and the malaria which always prevails where irrigation is necessary, is almost unknown here. Irrigation is not needed here, owing to the rainfall being excessive in Winter and the evaporation com- - paratively small in Summer. In this vicinity there is plenty of spring water, eligible sites for residences, and the land is cheap near the railroad. The only drawbacks are the steepness of the hillsides and the expense involved in clearing, the pines being both large and numerous. The expense of preparing this land for planting can be determined from the following article furnished to one of our city papers by a leading merchant of Colfax: Corrax; (Cal.), March 31st, 1883. “ Epitors BEE: Noting the interest taken in the settlement of our beautiful foothill country by families devoting their time to grape and fruit culture, by our ever welcome Bee, and receiving many inquiries from neighbors, also by letter from distant parts of the State, as to the expense of clearing up our second growth lands, expense of plowing, fencing and cost of grape cuttings, set- ting them out, etc, I write this, hoping you will find space " for it in your columns, thereby enabling us to answer all of the foregoing inquiries at once. “We bought last May eighty acres for $400—ridge land just east of town, where the ridge begins to fall off towards the North Fork of the American—a deep, red soil, laying on a decaying shelly slate. About July 1st we set men to work cutting off the second growth pines, firs and white cedars, and cutting all of it, suitable, up into fire wood. From that time up to the 20th inst., when we put our last cutting into the ground, we had constantly at work, in all suitable weather, from three to eighteen men and boys, at wages run- ning from $1 50 to $2 per day for the men, and from fifty cents to one dollar for the boys. Understand we employed white men and boys, and I will here say, in passing, if I can have my way about it, no Chinamen shall ever put his foot on land that I have an in- terest in, certainly not when many of my schoolmates are glad to find employment at the above very reasonable wages. Well, in casting up accounts, now that everything is done in first-class shape on the forty acres we have been improving, land plowed twelve inches deep and thoroughly harrowed, holes for cuttings dug with a spade and large and deep enough to plant cuttings twelve to sixteen inches deep, and substantial fence four and one- half feet high inclosing the whole of the forty-acre lot, bottom board twelve inches wide, with first space only two inches wide to be sure and keep out the rabbits, four seven inch boards above this, with three, four and five inches respectively as you approach top of fence, boards one and one-eighth inch thick of our native growth pines here, posts of our native white cedar large enough to square seven inches, lower ends charred before putting in the ground—cost of such posts being fifteen cents each, and such boards $15 per thou- ~ a —————————— TT] 28 THE FOOTHILL VINEYARDS. sand, delivered on the ground here—all necessary roadways and gateways finished and.complete, we find our entire expense has been close about seventy-five dollars per acre, or in round num- bers say $3,000 for the improved forty-acre lot; out of this, how- ever, we have a drawback of some few hundred dollars for wood sold. The other side of the account is as follows : 14,000 Purple Damascus cuttings; 6,600 Muscat of Alexandria; 5,000 Rose of Peru; 5,000 Mission; 3,000 Flame de Tokay; 2,000 Zinfandel ; 2,000 Grenarche, in and growing. Some few thousand of the above, however, are planted double so as to have rooted vines for next Spring to replace any that may not grow from first planting. For the balance we will trust to thorough cultivation and the rains of heaven, and will add, generous and bountiful indeed have gifts of “the latter always been to us in this section, averaging yearly forty- five inches, and for first five days of this week 7.96 inches, when your valley rainfall, as we see by the Bee, is only about 3.70 inches. “ Ror the information of those thinking of engaging in fruit and grape culture in our foothill country, would say, get far enough up the mountain side to be above the malaria and fogs that feed into the lower foothills from the valley, and don’t go high enough up the mountains to be in the line of deep snowfall. In saying this we ought also to say that one of the very best veneyards in the State is on the ridge between North and South Yuba at an alti- tude of nearly 5,000 feet, near Camptonville, just about twice our altitude here. Select lands with north, east, or northeast expos- ure ; they retain moisture longest and are invariably richer than south or west exposure. Further, these last exposures will burn delicate varieties, like the Tokay or Rose of Peru, unless foliage is very abundant on the vines to protect the ripening grapes. Again, select lands with deep red soil, lying on soft, shelly slate; avoid the lands lying on hard blue or black slates, at least until all the better lands are secured. From Clipper Gap to Cape Horn, lands as good as ours can be secured at from $2 50 to $5 per acre. We look upon New England Mills as a point possessing especially de- sirable lands, with abundant springs. “ We might add, but fear we have already encroached too far on your space, that with twenty pounds per vine, as the few vines al- ready here do bear, it is easy to see a return commensurate with the outlay ; in fact, we fear -to give figures on this side of the ac- count, as we would be drawing more on our hopes than stating cold facts, as we desire to do; but this we will say, as a matter of information : Planting seven feet apart, giving forty-nine super- ficial feet to the vine, gives us 888 vines per acre. If a vineyard will bear as a few vines above mentioned actually do, it is easily seen how a forty or eighty acre lot will support an industrious family in ease and comfort . One thing more we would like to add, but as this is also advice we might perhaps better leave it unsaid—don’t make yourself land-poor by buying too much land because it is cheap. A forty acre vineyard and orchard, and a forty acre lot for garden and pasture, are enough for any family. “W. M. Hayrorp.” THE FOOTHILL VINEYARDS. 29 This forty-acre tract can be seen by overland passengers on the Central Pacific as they round Cape Horn, a point at whieh the train is usually stopped to permit persons crossing the road for the first time to gaze upon one of the most wonderful and awe- inspiring scenes in Nature. The exact location of the vineyard referred to, can be seen in the back ground of the engraving rep- resenting this interesting spot. According to Mr. Hayford’s re- port, an expenditure of $3,000 secured a forty-acre vineyard, con- taining a variety of cuttings, complete with fence, and an extra forty acres for other purposes. This latter, if suitable for culti- vation, should go a long way toward supporting a family and the : necessary live stock, while the vines are maturing. It must be re- membered ® that this is a {@@ mining coun- ) try,even away across the boundaries of the State, and hence the best of markets is furnished for all the pro- # ducts of the farm. Fish can be raised by utilizing the creeks, and chickens Cape Horn. and eggs with Ru miles from San Francisco- Altitude 3,500 teet little e ff or t and a small outlay can be made sources of fair profit, as the market prices for these commodities are higher than in the East- - ern States. | The bearing year of the vines is determined by the kind of cut- tings used. In the present instance the first crop worth mention- ing will be four years hence. Had rooted cuttings been used, a crop would have been gathered the third year from planting. This vineyard will be in‘full bearing in 1889, when—according to the owner’s statement—a yield of eight tons to the acre may be expected, representing an income (at present prices) of $120 per acre, or $4,800 for the year. He also states that the net cost of the vineyard was less than seventy-five dollars per acre, as there was considerable fuel made in clearing the ground. It is a very easy matter to make an enterprise profitable on paper, but prac- tical experience frequently brings different results, and I fear this will be the case with this Colfax vineyard. The reader will notice i gn F LI Le he 30 THE FOOTHILL VINEYARDS. that attention has been drawn to the immense yield expected when the vines come into full bearing, in a section above the frost line. It is such statements as these to which objection is made in the preface to this pamphlet—statements which have done much toward injuring the State in more ways than one. I believe these higher hills of the Sierra Nevada will yet prove to be the verita- ble Rhine districts of America; and that from the thousands of acres now lying idle will yet come the best wine of our Western Continent. Still, it would not be advisable to count on eight tons of grapes to the acre, for two reasons. First, lands which produce so heavily do not lie on the hillside, and secondly, a reputation for the genuine French quality of wine, is generally ‘associated with a small yield of grapes. I am informed by an experienced wine maker of Sacramento, Mr. J. Knauth, who is familiar with the German and French wine districts, that this mountain vineyard, if successful, should yield two tons the fourth year, four tons the fifth, and five tons the sixth year, when it might be said to be in full bearing. As to this section being above the frost line, it is pertinent here to mention the fact that a late April frost this season killed about every pound of stone fruit in the locality, while tons of apricots, peaches and other fruits have been shipped from Newcastle. and Auburn, twenty miles lower down, in the warm belt. much injury to the vines in all of the valleys in the State, but less in the foothills, and in consequence the vintage will be pro- portionately less this season. Grapes, however, may escape these “frosts in.the higher altitudes, owing to the buds being later in - pruning, worth two dollars an acre. developing than in the warmer localities below. The cost of cultivating one of these hill vineyards will, in some particulars, be more than on level land, and in others less. Reck- oning a man and double team at three dollars, and a man and single team at two dollars per day, I think five dollars an acre would cover the expenses of cultivating the first year, after the planting is completed. Each succeeding year, if properly at- tended to, will require one plowing and four cultivations. This will be worth about $150. The second year there will be light The third year the pruning ~ will cost at least three dollars, and the fourth, if properly done, five dollars an acre. More hoeing around the vines will be required than on level land, as the cultivation will not be so close to the vines. This will add at least three dollars an acre each year after the first year. Sulphuring for mildew and cut- ting off suckers will not cut so much of a figure as on irrigated or valley land. Summarized, the expenses up to the fourth year will be about as follows, the figures being somewhat different from the average land circular: ne ——— This same frost also did THE FOOTHILL VINEYARDS. 31 Cost of forty acres vineyard planted and fenced, on five-dollar foothill land : Forty a0Tes IMProved.. ........... ccvievervriivreinisncenenniennns $3,000 Interest, four years at six per cent... 720 Expenses of cultivation first year..................cco.i a... i's Expenses of cultivation second year : Expenses of cultivation third year................c.covviiinna..... Expenses of cultivation fourth year The third year there might be a few grapes, but not more than enough to pay expenses. The fourth year might yield three tons, but two tons would be a fair average. This is the estimate of a vineyardist of the Coast Range, where the soil is volcanic in char- acter and considered of a better quality for grape growing. Sup- posing that wine grapes sold as low as $15 a ton, the returns for the fourth year, estimated at two ton, would amount to $1,200. Allowing enough for the third year to pay expenses, there would be $1,700 of an income. Deducting this from $5,420, and there is left about $3,800 as the net cost of the farm in the fourth year, or $954an acre for an improved vineyard nearly in full bearing. As an investment in good securities at six per cent, an amount ~ equal to the net cost of this four-year-old vineyard, would return $230 a year. Allowing $600 for expenses for each succeeding year, and four tons of grapes as an average yield, the net income to the owner would be for each successive year $1,800, or about $50 an acre. Some years the crop will be greater and some less, but four tons is considered a large average from year to year on hill vineyards with steep exposures. If grapes brought $20 at Colfax, the net profits would be $70 an acre; and I presume this would be a fair estimate in the immediate vicinity of a winery in a section remote from freight centers. I have put the price of grapes at $15, because at the present time there is no regular market there which will warrant higher figures for the wine vari- eties, and because I believe $15 per ton will be the minimum price in the future, when the immense number of acres now planted arrive at maturity. Lo Had this Colfax vineyard been located in the Coast Range, ad- joining Napa Valley, where there are numerous wineries, $30 a ton would have been secured for the best quality, or a net profit of over $100 an acre. However, it is fair to suppose that there will be wineries established in all localities where there may be vineyards enough to warrant them, and the foothill sections will be no exception to the general laws of trade. There are, even now, some small wineries in the lower foothills where irrigation is the rule, but they are mostly for home manufacture; and it pays very well for a vinyardist to make his own wine, especially when he is any considerable distance from market. The expense is not great, and the process is as simple as making cider ; that is, the producing of “must,” orthe pure grape juice. Twelve pounds of good grapes will make a gallon of “must,” which is equal to 160 gallons per ton. This can be sold in the Fall after fermenta- a ss A ————— - - Va Te ERR A er SR Be ART ® 2d FN TR A CR ES SIR SOR RR SR aT ot £ par GRA or, el 32 WINE VINEYARDS IN THE VALLEYS. tion, from twenty to thirty cents, with barrels returned. At the lower figure this would equal $32 a ton, or an excess of $17 a ton over the price quoted for the grapes. | The selection of cuttings for the Colfax experiment, indicates that the owners intended raising table as well as wine grapes, and mostly the former. Table grapes bring larger gross returns than wine, but the expense of careful picking and packing in small boxes, which are again packed in crates, does not greatly increase the profits unless advantage can be taken of early ripening, and thus get into the Chicago market several weeks before Eastern grapes are ripe. The first table grapes shipped East bring $80 a ton, and as the market gets overstocked the price gradually de- clines to about $40. Those grown in this vineyard will not ripen early enough to get the higher rates. The reader must remember that there is plenty of unimproved land in the warm fruit belt at between 700 and 1,000 feet eleva- tion, not far from the railway, which will not cost more than $20 an acre to grub out and prepare for planting, and it can be bought at $10 an acre. Some of it is in private hands, and some of it belongs to the railway. The latter can frequently be bought for $5 dollars an acre, and its whereabouts can be ascertained by addressing the Central Pacific Land Office, at San Francisco. WINE VINEYARDS IN THE VALLEYS. in California, is known as “ Napa Valley,” one of the numer- ous valleys on the east side of the Coast Range, north of San Francisco. St. Helena, a small town nine miles south of Calistoga, at the head of the valley, is the center of the industry. I spent several days in this locality last Spring investigating the meth- ods, expenses and profits of raising grapes for wine purposes in a section where the business has become thoroughly systema- tized, and I came away fully satisfied. I no longer had any doubts as to the financial success of grape growing as a business, T:: most prominent section for the growth of the wine grape ~ and, for the first time, I found a locality which exceeded in thrift and attractiveness the ideas previously formed of it by the peru- sal of descriptive articles. A glance at its main features will give a general idea of how all the valleys look which are situated in the Coast Range of mountains, the only material difference being in area. Napa Valley is situated in Napa County, extending northward from Suisun Bay on the north side of the Sacramento River, to Calistoga, at the foot of Mt. St. Helena, a distance of about fifty miles. It is eight miles in width at its widest part, but in the rere fe EEE WINE VINEYARDS IN THE VALLEYS. 33 section best adapted to grape culture—the upper portion—is only one or two miles wide. The area devoted to grape culture is about twenty-five miles. in length, southward from Calistoga. Throughout the length of the valley runs a stream of pure spring water, which is navigable from San Francisco up fo Napa City. The entire valley was formerly thickly studded with trees, the principal species being the California live oak, which retains its leaves during the whole year, and which at one time must have given the valley the attractive appearance of a beautiful park. These oaks are still to be seen wherever the ground has not been cleared for the purpose of planting vines and other kinds of trees. On either side of the valley rise spurs of the Coast Range, presenting at all times of the year an evergreen appearance, owing to the chaparral, manzanita, madrona, redwood and fir, with which they are covered. These hills are not abrupt, but rise gradually from the valley to a height of about 2,500 feet. Springs well forth on every side and run across the county road and railway, which pass up the center, and then empty into Napa Creek. Those in the lower part of the valley do not have so constant a supply as those in the upper, and in some cases become dry in Summer. The soil is a black, gravelly loam, and like that of all the moun- tain valleys, is the best in the State. It is thickly settled through- out its whole length, the principal industry being the raising of grain and fruit. The lower part, as far up as Napa, is affected by the tides, and is not good grape land. The upper twenty miles of it is considered peculiarly adapted to grape growing, the yield being as great, if not greater, than that of any other portion of the State, not subject to irrigation. The rainfall is heavy, and this, together with numerous springs, and the fogs which come up from Suisun Bay, bountifully supply the soil with moisture. Situated as it is, between two spurs of the Coast Range, it is, like all valleys, hot in the middle of the day, and cool at night ; cooler than the Sacramento Valley. \ ~ Napa Valley is fair to look upon, and it immediately captures the attention of an Eastern visitor, for several reasons: The land is more easily tilled than that of the foothills, it is within three hours ride of the metropolis of the State, the home market is right at one’s door, and, on the whole, it bears a very close resemblance to the thickly settled suburbs of the older cities “at home.” But luxuries are costly, and land cannot be bought here for $5 an acre. The ruling price is from $150 to $200 an acre for even unfenced land, and in choice locations it cannot be bought at these figures. Twenty acres of fine valley land, distant about two or three miles from town, at the lowest calculation, would cost here $150 an acre, or $3,000 for the plot, an amount sufficient, as has been shown, to secure double the number of acres, well Improved, in the mountains. But all that is necessary to bring the valley to a similar condition is to plant it, no fence being necessary to keep out either rabbits or a neighbor’s stock. As to which of the two vineyards, the twenty acres in the valley or the 34 - WINE VINEYARDS IN THE VALLEYS. forty acres in the mountains, will prove the more valuable in the future, I leave the reader to decide. One of the most prominent of our California raisin growers says that, to prepare the ground for planting by plowing and . cross plowing, would probably cost $5 an acre. This applies to sections like Napa Valley, where irrigation is unnecessary. As I . think all ground is improved by sub-soiling, I would put $6 an acre as a liberal average. In the wine vineyards here staking is also necessary ; it is not required, however, in the raisin vine- yards. From personal observation and inquiry, I would give the following figures as a fair estimate of the cost of a wine vine- yard of the best claret grapes. The cuttings used will be rooted, or one year old, when planted, thus securing an earlier bearing: COST DURING FIRST YEAR. Oneacreof valley Jand..........c.ccuviirivitrvennresnnivenines $150 00 Preparing for. planting. ..........ccoivvvivniii iii, ve... 600 880 vines at two cents. ........ciiiiiiiiii iit iiiees 17 60 Planting vines 7x7 feet. ....... cc ivivinindiv ennai iii . 500 Cultivating after planting.............cciviiiiiiiiniiiiniinn... 4 00 ; $182 60 SECOND YEAR'S EXPENSE. PratiB. isin tinernie ivitheav iin ve lis ai BA $2 00 Plowing and cultivating. ..........ccooivieiiiiieiiiiiiiiiieiiiin., 6 00 Hoeing around VIDeS.........cceoeerieeeeraneoonsonsesessoaseenssns 2 00 Cutting off suckers.............coiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiieeniinnnns © 50 880 stakes and staking. .........coouiiiieiiiiiiiiiiiaiinteianaanen 20 00 $30 50 THIRD YEAR'S EXPENSE. PrUDID EZ. coo i titi iii ieeeeeeeesateteannanaataenanaraeanans $3 00 (071157821 1 (03 + WAN 6 00 Suckering and hoeing...........c.oviiitiiietectniiesiienereennnnns 2 50 $11 50 According to the above figures the total expense of one acre for three years is seventy-four dollars, out of which thirty-five dollars may be deducted as cash outlay. for labor, supposing the work was done by hired men. The average expense for the three years is twenty-five dollars per year, including everything, but the average cost of labor is only thirteen dollars per.year. These figures are considered high by some, but they are in some cases still further increased by the expense of destroying insects and sulphuring the plants for mildew. The third year’s crop of this Napa vineyard will be the same as that of the Colfax vineyard in its fourth year, only very much larger, owing to the cuttings being planted in deeper and stronger soil, and well supplied with moisture. COST OF ONE ACRE IN THE THIRD YEAR. 97% 11s SP $150 00 Expense of cultivation first year.............. coool 32 60 Expense of cultivation second year................................ 3050 Expense of cultivation fourth year..................... co ool. 11 50 Interest on investment at six percent. ..............ccooiiiiiiiaL.. 27 00 DObAL. ote tt ee ee eee ieee aaa $261 60 Bm sa ET —— SS EE WINE VINEYARDS IN THE VALLEYS. 35 Total valuation of twenty acr i i AE y acres of valley land in the third year, tra Fa nation of forty acres at Colfax in the fourth year, The cost of this Napa vineyard is $250 an acre, but a visit to this valley will convince one of the fact that land of the same age and quality cannot be bought to-day for less than $500 an acre; and two years hence from $800 to $1,000 per acre will be asked, according to location. This high valuation of land. after three or four years of improvement, is due to the income to be derived from it. The following extracts clipped from the St. Helena Star of the past Winter, will give the reader an idea of ‘the profits of this land at the present time : “Charles Wheeler—thirty acres, 285 tons, worth $9,125, or over $300 an acre. He picked from several Zinfandel vihes two vine- yard boxes (or about ninety pounds each), leaving a heavy second crop on the vine. He often filled three boxes from two vines of Zinfandel varieties. The yield, taken to the cellar, was eighteen tons to the acre, and Mr. Wheeler says that at least three tons per acre was left on account of frost, making a total yield of twenty- one tons per acre. This vineyard has been heretofore spoken of," and has been visited by several. R. M. Wheeler—Twelve acres of two-year-old vines, forty-seven tons, worth $1,645. H. M Pond—five acres of two-year-old vines, fifteen tons, worth $480. There are ten acres in the tract, but about half of it was set last year. I. J. Newkirk—Thirty acres two-year-old, 105 tons, worth $3,000. All that the land cost two years ago. F. W. Loeber— twenty-eight tons from 2,700 vines; some of them young. Over ten tons per acre. Worth $868. W. A. Field picked from three- year-old vines forty pounds to the vine, or three vineyard boxes full from three vines, the same being the vines noted some time since ; also, at about the rate of twelve tons per acre for old vines. N. Sawyer—From eight acres of two, three and five-year- old vines, forty-five tons, worth $1,600. Martin Furstenfeld har- vested 134 tons, worth $4,155, from twenty-four to twenty-six acres. J. G. Norton harvested over 100 tons, worth near $4,000. J. W. Williams harvested from fifteen acres 100 tons, valued at $3,200. About a quarter of these are young vines, two and three years old. Captain William Peterson harvested from thirty-five acres 210 tons, worth $6,000. The Captain says he might have picked about fifteen tons more, but thinks he got enough. We think so, t00.” It will be seen from the extract given above that two-year-old vines from rooted euttings gave a very good yield, in some instan- ces being as high as three tons. I wrote to the editor of the paper inquiring if the figures were not the production of an over-fertile imagination, and I was informed that they were en- dorsed by the owners of the lots. Since then I have talked with some of the owners themselves, and I am convinced that the estimates are nearly correct, as in every instance I found the best soil under the very best cultivation, which is the secret of success a | Eo i : NRRL ar SEE hws - ed Na WR CR TR SRA WF HR SE 36 WINE VINEYARDS IN THE VALLEYS. with small fruit farms everywhere. In corroboration of the fore- going statement, I annex the following extracts taken from other papers throughout the State : te NH BS The Napa Register gives the following figures: “Mr. P. Dur- bin, of Green Valley, Solano County, has twenty-one acres of bearing vines, from which he has shipped 100 tons to the Uncle Sah wine cellar, in Napa ; 3,000 boxes of thirty-five pounds each to San Francisco, and still has ten tons left. The balance sheet for that crop will stand about as follows: RECEIPTS. By 100 tons at $30 per ton...... add Fae Sen Se wn whe nh #3000 By 8,000 boxes at two cents per pound............. eves ere vy id eH 200 By ten tons at $30 per ton................. Perens Ota]. ......cciiii viii tr rrr rrr rri rrr ra ara a rary $5,400 DISBURSEMENTS. To vineyard expenses at $25 peracre..................coiiiieinnnn. $a To commission at five percent.............. ae teaser ee Eh x Pofreight..............coiiiiiiiiiiiinrnnrranrrsnsnens eee Total AiSDUISEIMENLE. . o.oo e essen eee ee eee eennaeeeeenersns $820 Net Profit.........cooiiiiiiiiiieiriniconnennens $4,670 It will be observed that vineyard expenses are put in at the highest estimate, and that the freight charges are high also, and 3 yet this leaves a net profit of \ $217 66 per acre. oF c omparisor, NREL. suppose he ET had raised ; wheat in- stead, and produced two tons to the acre and sold it at $2 per hundred, the gross receipts would have been $80 an acre. The River- side Press year ago last leasant Valley. 300 miles from San Franucisco—Altitude 4,500 feet. Henderson planted two acres to rooted Muscat vines. He afterwards sold out to C. V. Craven. This Fall Mr. Craven sold six tons of grapes from the two acres for $32 50 per ton, or a total of $195.. This will do for an eighteen-maonths-old vineyard. a rr rr a TE he GG Ck says: ‘One Spring Wm. WINE VINEYARDS IN THE VALLEYS. 37 “Four years ago W. B, Chaffey purchased one and two-year- old Muscat vines from a neighbor who had lost confidence in the raisin grape. He planted one and a quarter acres to these vines. The first season after planting he picked the crop, dried the same, and sold the raisins for $50; the second season he sold the Crop on the vines for $150; the third year he sold his crop in the same way for $200, and this year he has again sold his grapes on the vines for $250. For four years he has sold his crops for a total of $650. The vines originally cost him about $35; he has culti- vated the same four years, and the little vineyard now pays him a net income on a valuation of about $1,800 per acre. “ Mr. Aeson, who lives in the vicinity of Crafton, called at our “office this morning, and gave us the following report of his grape yield: The vineyard was plowed and irrigated only once this season. His vineyard of one acre and a half produced by actual ~ weight no less than 24,700 pounds, and the grapes even then were not considered a good stand. At the price paid for Mission grapes, one cent per pound, the crop would bring him $247.” These results are obtained from irrigated lands in Southern California, where nothing but cactus grows without the aid of an artificial supply of water, and the soil is nothing but a coarse sand of a reddish color. It must be remembered, however, that these reports of big yields are exceptional, and the man who expects to get such satisfactory returns year after year from a ten or twenty acre tract, without the use of other fertilizers than water, will surely find himself the victim of misplaced confidence. As it is the average which I purpose dealing with, I would place the yield of a two-year-old vineyard of rooted cuttings, ‘that is, about eighteen months after planting, at one ton to the acre. This is a lower figure than any of our Napa vineyardists ~ will endorse, but the Eastern man contemplating removal to this State, will find his disappointments on the right side, if he bases his calculations on under-estimates for yield and over-estimates for expenses. If this ton is of the better quality of claret grapes it would be worth, last season, $30; if of a poorer quality, $25, at St. Helena. If the cuttings were of: the best, the returns would be $29 at the winery, $1 being paid for picking. The third year the yield will be from three to five tons, and the vines being young and vigorous, I would place three and a half tons as an average. At $30 this would amount to $105 per acre, or $2,000 for the whole tract, allowing $100 for picking and hauling. Adding $575 for the second year’s net returns, and we have for total receipts $2,575, which would give us the following exhibit : Cost of land, labor and improvements. ............................. $5,000 Income for second and third years.................................. 2,575 Cost of farm in third year.................. cocoon... $2,425 Viewing the situation from a financial standpoint, a compari- son of the respective values of the mountain and valley vine- yard, certainly gives the latter the preference, for while the Colfax 38 WINE VINEYARDS IN THE VALLEYS. venture gives a net cost of $4,000 in the fourth year, the Napa vineyard foots up only $2,500 for the third year. Besides this, about a year and a half’s labor and time has been saved by pur- chasing in the valley ; half a year of grubbing out, and one year in the maturity of the vine. It must be remembered, though, that one estimate was on a light yield and $15 a ton, while the other was on a heavier yield, and $30 a ton. If the mountain vineyard is successful, it will not be long before wineries will be plentiful and a better market provided, in which case the annual income will become greater; and as it is quite probable that the market at Napa will be lower in the future, my opinions are, that time will increase the value of the one and lower the other. In addition to the preceding exhibits, it has been shown that mountain vineyards will scarcely ever produce more than five tons per acre, while in the valley five or six tons may be expected the fourth year; from six to eight the fifth, and from that time for- ward anywhere from six to twelve tons per acre, according to the thoroughness of cultivation. . Non-residents may look upon these figures as the constituent elements of a fancy sketch, but in this they will be very much mistaken. Professor Hilgard, of the State University, in a lecture before the Napa wine-growers, in which he objected to quantity of yield in lieu of quality, said : “ Thus, when quality comes to be considered, the thirteen-ton soils are not likely to give the-best results. They are good enough for table grapes, and perhaps for raisins, but not for high-quality wines.” Mr. Blowers, of Woodland, Yolo County, one of the most reliable vineyardists in the State, who last year cleared $10,- 000 from less than sixty acres, says: “I have a small patch of Seedless Sultanas six years old. I got five tons the third year, ten the fourth year, twelve the fifth year, and seventeen tons the sixth year, but it requires intelligent cultivation to produce such results.” If this is not evidence enough to substantiate what has been written concerning the large yield of some vineyards, it surely can be found in the fact that the vineyards in this same Napa Valley are assessed this year for improvements, in the following order: Those bearing from one to two tons, two to three tons, three to six tons, six to nine tons, and all over nine tons. The latter are assessed at $150 per acre as improvements, besides $100 per acre for the land, making $250 per acre for vineyards bearing more than nine tons. Henceforth there will probably be less boasting about big yields. If I were giving my individual opinion as to what a new-comer might expect for an average yield from year to year of both a hillside and a valley vineyard, I would not place the former higher than four, nor the latter higher than six tons to the acre. I am aware there are some kinds of grapes which yield heavier than others, which, under favorable conditions, are expected to yield, one year with another, from ten to fifteen tons, but there are also many vineyards in the Sacramento Valley, even in the vicinity of Sacramento City, which do not produce an average of much over two tons. Some years the vines are injured by frosts, WINE VINEYARDS IN THE VALLEYS. 39 the valleys more than the foothills; the insects also do much injury, and there are a good many reasons why our big yields, which always get into the papers, should not be taken as a stand- ard. The following clipping of a recent date, from a paper ~ published in the center of these very Napa vineyards, will per- haps best serve my purpose : “There appears to be a serious injury to the grape crop this _ season, nothwithstanding the fine promise of the early Spring. From some cause—not clearly understood, but supposed to be hot weather and dry north winds—the Malvoisies and Reislings have diminished immensely in quantity. We do not know the extent of the damage, but fear it to be general. One gentleman estimates the loss at twenty-five per cent; another shows us sam- ples of Malvoisie bunches, and thinks the crop of that variety not over one quarter to one third. This, considering the large share which this heavy-bearing grape is of our whole crop, is a serious loss. Instances are given us of vintners who do not value their prospects at more than one half what they received last year. Reislings have also suffered severely. The loss, how- ever, while extensive, is not universal, for Herman Schram, up in the foothills, informs us that their Malvoisie crop was never bet- ter, and that they suffer only in one variety of Reisling. A care- ful observer thinks that new vineyards coming into bearing will make up this loss in the old ones, and the aggregate yield thereby be kept up to that of last year.” : | ~The subjoined letter is from the owner of an old St. Helena vineyard which has been cultivated by contract, in the absence of its Eastern purchaser, who took up his residence there in the Winter of 1881-82. It is on good bottom land, but has been poorly cared for for three or four years, yet it is right in the vicinity of the ten and twelve-ton farms. I present the letter in full, as going to show the variation in yield on good soil, from a want of proper care, and also for the purpose of presenting the views of an intelligent gentleman of leisure upon the cost of caring for a small place. Four and one half tons to the acre was too insignificant a yield to satisfy the owner, and it is his inten- tion the coming Winter to graft his Mission vines to Zinfandel, or else remove them altogether and plant new rooted cuttings, the product of which will bring a better price : St. HELENA, May 6, 1883. Dear Sir: It is almost impossible to give an exact estimate of the cost of cultivating a grape crop. One man will easily cultivate ten acres, and another will do more ; at the same time he will do all the necessary work about the place, such as chores, etc., etc. It will keep him pretty busy— say about two months in the season for cultivating—and if the ground is very weedy he may once need help in hoeing. We usually plow and then cultivate both ways, and many go over again with a clod-masher. Then there is suckering and topping, and if there is liability to mildew, sprink- ling with sulphur. : I should say that one man in a bearing vineyard of ten acres, at wages of twenty-five to thirty dollars per month (and board), could run it, if he did nothing else, by occupying four months of his time during the year. . If pruning was included, he might have to put in six months. I don’t know 40 RAISIN . CULTURE. as that would include picking. The latter is usually done by Chinamen, at ninety cents per ton, or one dollar a day, without board. The estimate I have made would cover part of this, but not all. My neighbor would prob- ably do work enough in the time mentioned to accomplish the whole thing; but, of course, when it comes to picking, this has to be done in a shorter time than one man could do it in. Probably in a vineyard of say forty acres, an expense of ten dollars an acre would do everything required, while in one of twenty or ten acres the expense would be proportionlly less, because the man with ten acres, who lives on his land and depends upon it for support, has time to do a great deal besides attending to his vineyard. The fact is, I have not been so situated that I could keep an exact account of net profits. I have nine and a half acres of Mission grapes, from which I got thirty-eight tons, which I sold for twenty-five dollars per ton. I bought my place a few years ago, when on a visit here, but only removed here from the East about a year ago; consequently, the vineyard has not been cared for as it should have been. Even with the small yield of last year, had my vines been of a better variety it would have added $200 to my income. Stakes cost from eighteen to twenty-two dollars per thousand if bought ready for use. —_——, RAISIN CULTURE. TT preceding chapters on grape culture have referred chiefly to those varieties specially adapted to table and wire pur- poses. There is another branch of the. business of grape growing, the conduct of which entails more labor in order to insure success, but it rewards the producer with larger returns. I refer to that of raisin-making from the Muscatel grapes. It is unnecessary to refer in detail to the several expenses connected with the maintenance of a raisin vineyard. The plan of setting it out is the same as that pursued in other cases, except that no stakes are required to support the vines, and the land is prepared for irrigation. The latter requirement adds materially to the expense. A longer season is necessary for the raisin grape than for those intended for wine purposes, owing to the time occupied in drying; and it prospers best in a warm, dry climate where rains and fogs are unknown during the growing and drying sea- son. Nearly all the vineyards in the State are irrigated, although in different ways and at different times of the year, according to locality. Throughout the greater part of Southern California irrigation is practiced throughout the Summer months, and the same may be said of the Sacramento Valley and the Sierra Nevada foothills, although in some parts of the Sacramento dis- trict Winter irrigation only is employed. There are three meth- "ods of irrigation—one by conducting the water in small surface ditches between the rows, one by employing cement underground pipes, and the other by flooding on the surface. The latter is the plan utilized for Winter irrigation. The most successful method in Southern California is explained in the following remarks of RAISIN CULTURE. 41 Mr. James Boyd, of Riverside (Los Angeles County), deli at the last meeting of the Is ongiles, Sarit Slctgrad In Riverside the rainfall is so light, and the atmosphere so dry in Summer, that irrigation is an absolute necessity, and expe- rience has amply proved that it pays to irrigate, in the increased yield, as well cas the certainty of a crop in the driest seasons. The best practice in irrigating, judging from the results, is to irri- gate before Winter, or just after getting the fruit all out of the vineyard ; then plow after the rainy season has commenced ; then let it lie to get the benefit of the sun and rains—as late as possible in the Spring, or until the weeds and growth of the vines, which must be pruned before first plowing, warn you not to be too late with your work. We then give another thorough irrigation and plowing, and keep the cultivation going as long as practicable during the Summer. This will keep them in good growth until the middle or end of July, when another irrigation will be sufficient to ensure a bountiful crop. Irrigation has a tendency to retard the ripening of the grape somewhat. but as our Winter rains are later in Southern California, and our sun is stronger than in the northern part of the State, it is but a trifling drawback.” Winter irrigation consists in flooding the land. The method of irrigating pursued by the vineyardist in the Sacramento Valley and Southern California, is to inclose a given area by a furrow and then either pump the water into the basin, or dam up the water of an irrigating ditch, and cause it to overflow the piece of ground to be irrigated until it stands two or three inches deep over the surface. _¥ One essential of a good raisin is that the grape must be fully ripe. Unripe grapes will not make a raisin at all, and at best are only poor dried grapes. In picking, the bunch is held by .the stem, and all imperfect berries removed, care being taken that the bunches are not touched by the’ hand, as it destroys the bloom and very much mars the appearance of the raisins, They are then laid on wooden trays, two feet by three feet, made of half- inch lumber, planed on one side and nailed to cleets or end pieces two feet long by one and a half inches deep and one inch wide. The trays are usually filled with twenty pounds of grapes, which ghrink two thirds in drying, three trays containing twenty pounds of grapes, making twenty pounds of raisins. “In September two or three weeks are usually sufficient to dry them. When about fully half dry they are turned, which is a very simple process, and is usually done in the early part of the day, by placing an inverted empty tray on top of a full one and turning both over at the same time, two men being requisite in the operation. The grapes are usually left in the vineyard during the drying process, although some have alleys through the vine- yard for drying, while others carry them out entirely to clear ground, but neither process is necessary until later in the season when, if the weather is at all damp and the vines in full leaf, it is very advantageous to carry them out to some sunny spot, where, 42 © RAISIN CULTURE. being canted slightly to the sun, they may have full benefits of the sunshine. : | “ When the raisins are fully dry they are put into large boxes called sweat-boxes, a little larger than the trays, and eight inches deep, holding 130 to 140 pounds. Although the boxes are called sweat-boxes, the raisins do not really sweat. It is impossible to get the raisins uniformly dry, but by putting them in bulk in this way the moisture in the raisins gets diffused throughout the mass, and the stems, which previously were hard and brittle, get damp and pliable, are in a suitable condition for packing, and at the same time the rich aroma is developed, which greatly en- hances the pleasure in eating them. After being in the sweat- box a few days, they are in fine order for packing, which requires - considerable skill in order to make them as attractive as possible. The best raisins are packed in layers of five pounds each, in boxes of twenty Dentin, weight, while extra choice are packed in halves, quarters and eighths, containing ten, five and two and a half pounds, respectively. Forms or moulds are used to pack each layer separately and to press them, which is done generally in a screw or lever press (the latter preferred). They are then slipped into the boxes neatly wrapped in white paper, the top layer in each box being wrapped in fancy paper, accompanied with a lithograph of a vineyard or other suitable scene. The boxes are then nailed up and suitably stenciled preparatory to sending to market.” os For the facts concerning the expense and profit attached to a raisin vineyard, I am forced to rely to some extent on the pub- lished statements of others; but, as I have selected paragraphs penned only by those known to be reliable and who have had experience, the statements can be relied upon as more valuable, perhaps, than any offered in the preceding pages. The reader will the better understand the yield of a raisin vineyard if he will remember that : | | A “box” of raisins weighs twenty pounds. One hundred boxes make a ton. One ton of raisins equals three tons of grapes. In raisin making, sixty-six and two-thirds per cent is usually given as the amount of shrinkage in drying, but this is mislead- ing when applied to a whole crop promiscously, and especially so when applied to grapes raised by irrigation. I have never seen any other estimate in print than the former, but I have yet to find a raisin grower who endorses it personally. Mr. N. Wycoff, of Woodland, who has 120 acres in grapes, with fifty acres in full ~ bearing, says: “One year with another, rejected clusters and waste will require very nearly four tons of grapes for one ton of good raisins.” Mr. G. H. Kerr, of Elk Grove, near Sacramento, who has a forty-five acre vineyard, claims that, “ Three tons of Muscat grapes raised on land without irrigation will make a ton of raisins, but. with heavy irrigation it will take nearly, if not quite four tons, to produce the same amount. Irrigated grapes contain more water and less sugar.” ies 4 A I. -R o RAISIN CULTURE. 43 The principal raisin districts of the State are in the neighbor- hood of Davisville and Woodland, Yolo County; Florin, Elk Grove and Rocklin, Sacramento County; Fresno, Fresno Coun- ty; Riverside, San Bernardino County; and the San Diego vicinity. The most experienced and reliable authority in this section, if not in the whole State, is Mr. R. B. Blowers, of Wood- land; who has about sixty acres in his home vineyard. The fol- lowing is a report of a recent interview with him, from the San Francisco Bulletin: ‘ “ How long have you been at Woodland? Since 1854. “How old is your vineyard? Fifteen years old this Spring; that is the oldest vines; some are younger. | “Do the fifteen-year-old vines produce better than the younger vines? I think my fifteen-year-old vines, as a whole, produce more than the younger ones, although some of the younger vines, those that are five or six years old, yield as much as the older vines. “What, in your opinion, is the most productive acre in your vineyard? I have made as many as 250 boxes of raisins from an acre of grapes. “What are they worth per box? Average good raisins are worth from $2 to $2 50 at wholesale rates; that has been the average price for the past five years. “Then 250 boxes would yield $500? Yes, that is my opinion. “What yield of shipping grapes have you obtained? Of ship- ping grapes the yield will average ten tons to the acre, and four tons per acre of wine grapes. (Fourteen tons. “ What are they worth? Table grapes bring $40 per ton ; wine grapes from $20 to $30 per ton. “ What variety do you raise for shipping? The Emperor, which yields as high as fourteen tons to the acre, and will bring $40 per ton. “How much does it cost to prepare the ground for planting a | vineyard? Preparing the ground is but a trifling cost—probably $5 per acre, unless you mean preparing for irrigation. But sim- ply plowing and replowing to a depth of six or eight inches, the cost is about $5 per acre. I estimate the first cost of planting a vineyard all the way from $20 to $40 per acre, including the first year’s cultivation, irrigation and rooted vines. “ What is the cost per acre for the next two or three years? About $20 per acre until you get them into bearing. This includes irrigation, cultivation, etc. “ How many years is required to bring a vineyard into profit- able bearing? That depends upon who has the vineyard. If it is handled with judgment and skill, the third year ought to pay well for that year and also the second year’s expenses. For in- stance, I have a small patch of Seedless Sultanas six years old. I got five tons for the third year, ten tons for the fourth year, twelve tons for the fifth year, and seventeen tons for the sixth year. “It requires intelligent cultivation to produce these results? . Yes, sir. RRR a Sel BR RO SNR ERR TNE RTI AS 2 A, ER BE ah Wh RSA AEE a. NG TE Rh We ERR, LB Ry Sh ES id RR w 4 ud HEN a LA re be used by making them into wine. 44 RAISIN CULTURE. “Tn regard to location. You find a great difference in the soil and climate and in the cultivation of grapes? Yes sir. The . quality of the soil is an important consideration in selecting a vineyard. : “ State generally, do you regard grape growing in this State for the purpose of making raisins for the table, and for wine mak- ing, as having passed the experimental stage? Oh, entirely so. You can raise as good grapes in Shasta as in San Bernardino. People will eat raisins and will drink wine. This is one of the principal industries in France and Spain, and it can be carried on more extensively in California. : “ What would be the effect of any increase in the consumption of raisins? I do not think you can count upon raisins being higher than now. But of course any surplus we may have can “Is it not fair to presume that the production is-about up to its maximum in France and Spain? Yes, sir; up fully. There are but few raisins made in France as compared to what are made in Spain. Last year there were some 70,000,000 pounds of raisins shipped into France from the Levant, 60,000,000 pounds of which were probably made into wine. The loss by phylloxera in the wine districts of France makes it necessary for the French peo- ple to use raisins in the manufacture of wine; therefore I look upon raisin making in California as a permanent business, as all surplus of raisins may be made into wine. “In your opinion, grape growing will not be overdone for a great many years? Not in my time, nor yours... Whenever grapes become unprofitable for raisins, we can feed them to our pork, and then raisins will soon be in demand again. “To what extent may grapes be devoted to fattening pork? Grapes will fatten pork faster than any other known food. Hogs fed upon this food will increase from two to three pounds per day. d Do you know of any experiments in the direction of making sugar from grapes? No, sir. The result would be only glucose. The average grapes yield probably about twenty-five per cent of sugar, or, 100 tons of grapes would contain but twenty-five tons of saccharine matter. . “Can grapes be profitably grown to any considerable extent in California without irrigation? Oh, yes. The greater portion of our northern grape growers do not use irrigation at all. In Sonoma and Napa Valleys, and in the Vacaville belt, they do not irrigate. But in that part of the State where the annual rainfall is small, say in Fresno and all the great interior valleys, they have to resort to irrigation. | : “What is the annual profit per acre of grape growing in your county? I could not answer what has been the profit of others, but I think I can safely say that the profits on the better class of raisins would be at least $100 per acre. For the past six years the profits have averaged over $100 per acre. “What is an average vineyard considered worth when in bear- RAISIN CULTURE. 45 ing say for five or six years? That would depend upon the vari- ety of raisins, location of vineyard, facilities to railroads, ete. . There are vineyards you could not buy for $500 per acre. For instance, I have a neighbor who has five acres. He has made as high as $1,000 clear profit from the five acres, and hired all his work done. ~ “What is your opinion as to the value of the foothills for fruit culture, as applied to the lower and middle altitudes of the west- ern slope of the Sierra Nevadas? They have been very success- ful very high in the hills. ‘So far as I have knowledge, all of them have made a success of it. = ae re “ Have you any statistics showing the increase of grape culture in California for the past five years? I can state approximately that I believe there are about 100,000 acres of grapes at the pres- ent time planted in California, but not that many acres in bear- ing—nearly half is in new vines. Gop a “ What is the experience as between cultivating on a large scale and on a small scale? The greatest success, so far as I have knowledge, must be credited to small vineyards, well cared for, as against large vineyards. I think this isithe universal Jjudg- ment of vineyardists generally. Recurring to the ‘subject of location for a vineyard, I will state in the upper Sacramento Val- ley, at an elevation of from one to two hundred feet, there is less frost than in the valley along the river. The warm’ air rises, pro- ducing what is known as the warm belts, while down in the valley they are subjected to late frosts. All these things are to be taken into consideration in selecting a location. - ala “How long will grapes bear before the vines cease to be profit- able? We cannot expect to find any soil in the world to yield well year after year without fertilizing. The Seedless Sultana has yielded me forty-four tons to the acre, but it would be preposter- ous- to expect it to keep that up without fertilizing the soil. If the soil is properly fertilized the vines will bear for a hundred years. “What has been the experience of vineyardists of this State concerning fungoid growth and insect pests? Fungoid growth can be combated successfully with the proper remedies. I have one variety of fungoid growth which yields readily to an application of sulphate of iron. The more permanent varieties of mildew yield readily to a little sprinkling of sulphur applied two or three times a year. “What proportion of the fertile agricultural lands in California is adapted to growing the grape? That is a very hard question. There is a great proportion of our wheat land—-nearly all of it outside of the immediate coast region—will grow grapes to a greater or less extent. When we speak of grape soil, of course we refer only to such soils as are suitable for grapes. We have about 75,000 acres of good raisin soil, capable of being irrigated, In our county. Seventy thousand acres in our county will pro- duce 125 boxes of raisins to the acre, all subject to flood by irri- gation. The industry is unlimited. We could raise more raisins a a a ah A Ea IE a ov Rm . ED a— I : ony 3 or Tl TRE Te PE I AS TREE E . - I SRR I RG aR SR IR SES ¥ SE a eg Te RE Wr WE Re ER PRE R ¥ a E Ra fa 3 EE RRR RL Pa TR A oz wim w, » % 06 RAISIN’ CULTURE. in California than the whole world could consume, provided we all went into the business.” : In answer to the question, What is an average vineyard consid- ered worth, when in bearing, say for five or six years, Mr. Blowers said: “There are vineyards you could not buy for $500 per acre. I have a neighbor who has five acres. He has made a8 high as $1,000 clear profit from five acres, and hired all his work done. “According to Mr. Blowers’ statement, there are 7 5,000 acres in Yolo County that will yield 125 boxes of raisins to the acre each year—after the first five years. This is equal to three and three- » fourth tons of grapes to the acre. At the lowest price paid by the wholesale merchants for several years past, this would bring the producer a gross in- come of $250 per acre ; and allowing $25 per acre for cultivation — up to the picking sea- son —any person of or- N lk dinary intelli- Snow Gallery. gence can 244 miles from San Francisco —~Altitude 6,954 feet. f orm some idea of the profits of a California raisin vineyard. But three and three-fourth tons of grapes per acre—off six-year-old vines— does not satisfy our vineyardists around Woodland, and the rai- sin-maker who would be contented with such an average would not bear an enviable record among his neighbors. If I were making investments in different localities where the soil was as good as that about Woodland, I should expect to raise six tons of grapes to the acre, one year with another, notwithstanding the occasional ravages of insects. The expense of curing and preparing raisins for market is a very important item, and materially affects the highly colored stories that have been put afloat concerning the gross incomes of raisin vineyards. The marketing of wine grapes is attended with no more labor than is usually expended in the care of an apple crop. The moment they are gathered from the vines they are packed into boxes and carted to the winery, or—as is sometimes the case—loaded loosely into wagons with deep beds, and thence RAISIN CULTURE. 47 dumped, by the aid of shovels or pitchforks in huge piles before the wine press. On the other hand the gathering ons of raisins involves a great deal of labor, and not infrequently a con- siderable outlay of money. A good authority on the subject thus emis the expense of placing one box of raisins on the mar- et: | Turning and taking up ol 10 cents BOE irinn ns todas rannr runt nnh nrg nnn gn wn nl vy aS 15 cents Bed. NN SSSA ; DE Les or Test easel ea Teil narrehies se TONNE This would give an outlay of fifty-two cents for each box. four- teen dollars for each ton of grapes, forty-two dollars for each ton of raisins, and—on a basis of 125 boxes—would amount to sixty- five dollars per acre, in addition to the cost of labor, up to pick- ing-time. Summarized, we would have as the net profits of an acre : Income on 125 boxes at $200. Expense of cultivation, including irrigation Expense of picking, packing, ete. Net profit per acre The annexed letter, published in the Press and Horticulturist refers to an exceptional yield in the southern district, where irri. gation 1s generally practiced. I know nothing of its author, but should infer—from the figures that he gives relative to the ex- pense of marketing and the price received for his raisins—that his crop was intrusted to the far from tender mercies of commis- sion merchants, who bled him pretty freely. Either this, or his raisins must have been of poor quality. The latter, hawever, is not indicated by the percentage of London layers. The letter will interest all persons who have given any thought to the sub- ject of raisin culture : : “ Agreeably to your request made several weeks ago, I subjoin the following statement of the crop of my vineyard the past sea- son : VINEYARD EXPENSES, To pruning and incidental labor To cultivation and water To curing and incidental labor To cartage ESE cc aR a rp a URE ERE JE SY Se BEI VARI PE RE Sr Ca TRY Sg A - = y . = 5 4 a EE a es oT Re CURR : AT A 48 RAISIN CULTURE. VINEYARD RECEIPTS. By 457 boxes raisins at $1 73 : By 25 boxes raisins (halves) at $1 98 Byegrapes old... ...... . . 0... ........ AGL AA AS Balance Add cuttings sold Net returns. Number vines four and a half years old (from cuttings), Number vines two and a half years old (from cuttings) VARIETY, NUSCAT OF ALEXANDRIA. Area in four and a half year old vines, one and a half acres; area in two and a half year old vines, one quarter of an acre. Total area of land, one acre and three quarters (nearly). Per cent. London Layers, seventy-eight. Product of one quarter of an acre in two and a half year vines estimated at not exceeding twenty boxes. Produet of one and a half acres in four and a half year vines (balance of total 482 boxes) 462 boxes. : 2 ‘Product per acre of four and a half year vines, 308 boxes. ‘Gross returns per acre of four and a half year vines, $537. . Net returns per acre of four and a half year vines (not including cuttings sold), $304 12. : : x Cost of production and marketing, per twenty pound box, seventy-four cents. Net returns per twenty pound box, ninety-nine cents. Cost of pick- ing, curing and marketing per twenty pound box, sixty-two and'a half cents. ‘Value (before picking) of grapes sufficient to make twenty pound box of raisins, one dollar ten and a half cents. “ In the above list of expenses I have not included interest and + use of appliances for manufacture. The expenses include some items seldom incurred. Most producers will regard the expendi- tures as excessive. I did what I regarded best for the permanent good of the vineyard. The price obtained was somewhat low. In order not to overstate the production of the four and a half year old vines, I made a very libgral estimate of the crop from the younger ones. The production per acre (308 boxes) is, I believe, the largest ever reported from a Muscat vineyard. Seve- ral Riverside persons have, however, in other years, obtained bet- ter cash results, due to better prices and smaller expense accounts. My own labor is included in the list of expenses. It will be seen that the net result is ten per cent. on $3,041 20 per acre. The raisins rated with the best in quality. | “J. E. CUTTER. “ RIVERSIDE, CAL., January 3, 1883.” WHAT ONE MAN HAS DONE ON TEN ACRES. WHAT ONE MAN HAS DONE ON TEN ACRES. small capital, could do better here than in any other State, it was necessary to substantiate the remark by an exhibition of facts. In looking around for this, numerous instances came to my notice in various sections of the State, and I selected one in one of the raisin districts near Sacramento, as an illustration. I selected this one because it was an instance where a mechanic, working by the day, resolved to secure a home which would support him and his family in luxurious comfort in his declining years; and because it would enable me to furnish any doubtful immigrant who called on me, with a proof of what has been written, at a railway expense of only $1 80 to and from the State Capitol. After ascertaining that the owner of this ten acre lot was a reli- able man in every respect, and well informed in general, I wrote him and received the following letter in answer to my queries: WoobranDp, Cal., April 18, 1883. Dear Sir:—Your letter of inquiry written to the Ma:l was handed to me yesterday, and I will answer it to the best of my ability: I bought the ten acres of land I am living on in the year 1875-76, at $100 an acre. I set out common cuttings of the Muscat grape, or Muscatel, as Me Blowers calls it, in February of that year. I only planted five acres at first. From the five acres planted in *76 IT made 150 twenty pound boxes, or one and one-half tons of raisins in the Fall of 78, two years and seven months: after planting. I sold my crop that year for eleven cents per pound, return- ing me $330, and sold green, $175 worth, at two cents per pound, making a total of $505 in the first bearing year. The season of '79, my crop was cut short, at least one-third, by the rav- ages of grasshoppers, yet I made 325 boxes of fine raisins, which I sold mostly to Lindley & Co., of your city. The average price was twelve and a half cents per pound, or $2 50 per box. The sale of green grapes brought me in k The Fall of 80 my crop was again damaged by the hoppers as much as in ’79, yet for that season my returns footed up $1,700, not including the cuttings sold. Last season, my crop amounted to about the same as ’80 and ’81; think it would have run over $2,000, had the season been favorable for drying, but an early rain, which no one living in the State would ever expect at that time of the year, rotted many tons. My last two crops were sold to Adams, McNeil & Co, of your city. I kept no account of tons. ~ I flood my land in the Winter only. When good soil is underlaid with water at a depth of twelve feet, I do not consider irrigation necessary if the ground is well cultivated. I notice that there are more failures than suc- cesses in starting vineyards in this section, all from a lack of doing well what is done. 4 H man” made the assertion that a working-man, with a » AR : a ES SAG : aa a FE i Bill + oe bin ih a i Fa 2 sb a Ar at wi ATE WL ry Ta EA A ES DAT fo 5 - i A air Ta = 3 oe oe ™ EY dh Sia SR Nl TOR TA Ag Sa TR 0 A Es CONG TL ers Sodas 50 WHAT ONE MAN HAS DONE ON TEN ACRES. In answer to your question, as to what would be a fair yield in the Fall of 1882, of twenty acres set out with cuttings of the Muscat variety in Feb- ruary, 1880, I would say that, if the cuttings were good and the vineyard well cared for, I should expect at least 2,000 twenty-pound boxes of raisins; and if grown where there is always a second crop of grapes, as is the case here, and it was sold to the winery at present prices, I should expect an additional $50 an acre. I have never yet been able to save a full crop, owing principally to the ravages of insects, yet the results have been very satisfactory. I did most of the work on my place the first three years, and part of the time I have earned something at my trade, but I have paid as much for help as I have earned. I did not grow anything between the vines, and do not faver doing so. La : My ten acres are now all planted to trees and vines, and when it is all in bearing, will yield me a handsome interest, on a valuation of $1,500 per acre. My first planting was 8x10, or about 550 to the acre, but too close for good drying, where the vines make so much wood as they do here. The receipts of this five acre vineyard, planted in 1876, cer- tainly shows very satisfactory returns for the first three years after it commenced bearing. Tabulated, it shows the following results : ; Total for three years. These figures show an annual average income of $1,100 per year, or $220 an acre for each year since the vines commenced bearing, and it does not require much figuring to show that over $100 an acre of clear profit has been secured during this period. Supposing that the sixth and seventh years have been equally as productive as the fifth (which is known to be the case), and the receipts were included in the estimate, the average income for the five bearing years would be $1,340, or $266 an acre. It will be Seen further on, that a good deal better showing was secured in 1882, and it was not a very good season for raisins either. Wishing to satisfy myself of the reliability of the figures here given, I visited Woodland for the first time in June of the present year, and called on the owner of the ten acre farm, which lies less than a mile from town. Everything around the premises indicated the presence of a master-workman and a man of taste. A row of shade-trees completely hid the premises from the road, and a neatly painted one-story cottage was almost obscured from sight by a grove ‘of black walnut and other trees, which had been planted since he took possession. Around the house was a perfect bower of roses, oleanders, fuschias, geraniums and other fragrant shrubs, which filled the air with the aroma of semi- tropical plants so much at home on the Pacific Coast. There was also onthe premises a good sized barn or stable, containing a carriage, two horses and a cow; a drying house, and the usual farming implements, together with trays, picking-boxes, sweat- boxes and other requirements of a raisin vineyard. After a cordial greeting from the raisin-maker, the expenses and profits WHAT ONE MAN HAS DONE ON TEN ACRES. 51 of grape culture in its various phases was discussed. The fol- lowing interview embodies the principal points touched upon at this and a subsequent visit in July following : - “How many acres have you in fruit? About seven and a half in grapes and perhaps two in fruit trees. : “ You say that your land cost you $100 an acre. Did you pay cash for it? No. Iran in debt for it, and paid twelve per cent interest. I had money enough to build my house. “Is your place and implements all paid for? Nearly. “If you offered your ten acres for sale to-day, how much could you get forit? Eight thousand dollars. “Would you take that for it? No. “What do you base the value upon? The price paid for land in the neighborhood. A ten acre tract across the road, with buildings worth about $3,000, and only seven acres of grapes, not in bearing yet, brought $8,000 cash. | “You say you irrigate only in Winter. What does it cost you to irrigate once? About $15 for ten acres. “If there is the average rainfall, don’t you think irrigation is entirely unnecessary here? Yes, if the ground is well cultivated. My adjoining neighbor, on one side, has five acres which has never received a drop of water by artificial means, and he has the best stand of two-year-old vines in this section, but his vine- yard is also the best cultivated. It is like an ash-heap. He has only five acres in vines, but he has demonstrated the value of thoroughly mulching the soil without irrigation, and his two- year-old vines, from common cuttings, look better than a majority of rooted cuttings at the same age. “Had the owner previous experience in grape growing? No, I think not. He came here from Nevada two years ago; and he has shown us that irrigating at all, is unnecessary in our kind of soil. “Now, you irrigate once in the Winter, and your neighbor does not irrigate at all. Under these circumstances why is it that Mr. Blowers, who is considered authority in this matter, irrigates both Winter and Spring from the irrigating ditches, and during the Summer keeps his pump going at various times at the rate of over 100,000 gallons an hour? Well, it is simply this: Irri- gation is not absolutely necessary here, and I believe the roots will penetrate deeper without it, and in the end secure a longer lived and a more healthy vine, but a good irrigation in the Win- ter secures immunity from a possible drouth which you know accasionally occurs in this State. But while we may get a good crop without irrigating, a larger yield is secured by the applica- tion of an artificial supply of moisture, and herein lies the advant- age of Mr. Blowers’ steam pump. He can have water whenever he sees any advantage in using it; and a few weeks ago when my vineyard was being very heavily injured by the high temperature and the north wind for several days, you could have seen a stream of water running between every other row of vines on Mr. Blowers’ whole vineyard of sixty acres, thus cooling the — Ea iii Ss REE eT OR A ab Nd CGA Se on ab o “i y 5 die TT Fidos i TTT Ee ee A AA CINE SS A Sa ah Ser 8 sea er tee a ——————— A. rer rr —— LN a —_———————_—. 52 WHAT ONE MAN HAS DONE ON TEN ACRES. . atmosphere and restoring to the soil the moisture which it was ing deprived of by the excessive heat. The result is, that Mr. TL hos a far better outlook for a crop this year than mine or my neighbor’s. i havabien told that Mr. Blowers says his Sultana vines, which yielded sev- enteen tons tothe acre last year, will give him pe twenty tons | this year, not- } withstanding | the excessive- #8 ly hot weather Be of a few weeks & ago. Is that = so? Ido not know; if he says so, the re- portiscor- rect. He is at Monterey at present. “In my estimates of average yields on foothill and valley lands, do you find any errors? None except what will be of advantage to the one who makes a purchase on such figures. | “What do you consider a fair valuation for the season’s expense on your five acres? Counting my own time, my total expense last year was $400, or eighty dollars an acre. I kept an account. “What was your gross income from the raisin crop and what you sold for wine? My net profits amounted to twelve per cent interest on a valuation of $2,000 an acre. It would have been more than that if the rain had not spoiled many of the grapes before they were dry. “You te me that a twenty acre vineyard, the third season, Giant's Gap, American River. 208 :miles from San Francisco. . should give a yield of 2,000 boxes of raisins, which would be orth $4,000 at present prices; and also fifty dollars an acre of wo oh This would foot up $5,000, or $250 an acre, and I see. you only quote your own vineyard of the same age, at $505, or $100 an acre. Is not this a little mixed? No, the twenty acres were to he planted with rooted cuttings, while mine were only slips, and consequently a year later in bearing. Your average of two tons to the acre the third year is pretty low for this section, although it might be a fair average for the whole State. . “What do you consider your place worth now? If valued by FRUIT GROWING. 53 other sales, I should say, $10,000. If according to revenue ob- tained, it is worth more. “Do you wish to sell? I do not. The next man called upon was Mr. N. Wyecoff, the owner of a 120-acre vineyard, with fifty acres in full bearing. The following points were gathered from him, which were not touched upon in the interview with the owner of the five-acre farm: “ Taking one vintage with another, I know that the two-third shrinkage of grapes in raisin making, is misleading; that it will take nearer four tons of grapes than three, to make one ton of raisins, espe- cially if they are irrigated. I have a forty-acre vineyard which I do not irrigate, and I estimate the expense of cultivating at twelve dollars per acre. I think your figures on annual expenses are not too high, judging by my own, for I think it costs us, where we irrigate well, not much less than twenty dollars an acre. It is a matter hard to determine, owing to the way a vine- yard is cultivated. Some will keep a cultivator running all Sum- mer, while others will only do half as much ; we do not level land for irrigation here, it is level enough when it is plowed. Zinfandel vines (claret), one year with another, will bear six or seven tons to the acre. In 1881, I got thirteen and a half tons from one acre, but only seven and a half in 1882. These large yields are secured by long pruning, and should not be encour- aged, as it exhausts the vine. The heat and the north wind has injured our first crop badly this year, but our second crop is good. The Sultana, or seedless raisin grape, is a large bearer. Mr. Blowers weighed the crop of 700 vines last year, and got seventeen tons to the acre, and sold it at the winery here for thirty dollars a ton. I know this to be a fact.” FRUIT GROWING. — ————— HAVE not given to general fruit-growing the attention which, | perhaps, the subject demands, because I think the new-comer will find grape-growing a more pleasant industry. No doubt, there is a good deal of money made in raising stone fruits, but it takes longer to get returns equal to those received from vine-cul- ture ; it requires, too, a greater expenditure of labor, while the market is generally less satisfactory. The vine-grower has a uni- form price for his whole crop, and before he begins to sell he knows exactly what he will get for every pound of fruit that he raises. The fruit-grower, on the contrary, very seldom knows what his average receipts per pound will be, unless he contracts for the whole at low figures. His first fruits bring a high price, 54 FRUIT GROWING. if he is in a locality noted for early fruits, but as other sections begin to pour in their quota, prices decline rapidly until nearly every year there arrives a period when the discouraged fruit- raiser feels more inclined to feed his product to the hogs than to send it to market through the agency of commission merchants. Last year there were tons and tons of fruit sent to San Francisco which scarcely paid the expenses of freight and boxing, notwithstanding the fact that there were many canneries in active operation. : “ ~ With the larger acreage and greater capital, the orchardist would probably come out ahead ten years hence, supposing, of course, that the trees were carefully selected, and that the locality and quality of the soil were equally good in both cases. The orchardist, however, would have to work longer and harder than the vine-grower, and he would be compelled to deny himself the pleasure of a summer trip to the mountains or sea shore, a delightful and at the same time, almost necessary mode of spend- ing a few weeks of the heated term. As stone fruits ripen earlier than grapes, it happens that the viniculturist can enjoy a few weeks’ recreation without detriment to his vines, while the orchardist finds his presence at home of vital necessity in market- ing the greater part of his peaches, apricots, plums, pears and small fruits. I have said the fruit market fluctuates more than the grape, and in illustration I will cite an instance which has attracted - considerable attention in the State during the past year or two. When I came to the State, three years ago, I found the apricot to be the most prominent of the stone fruits. Everybody was advised to set out apricot trees, and nearly every orchardist ‘accepted the advice. A few orchards had just arrived at full bearing, and, the yield being heavy, and prices high, the nursery- men reaped a good harvest the following year or two. The can- neries paid three cents a pound for the fruit, and some orchards brought as high as five hundred dollars an acre. Besides the excellent showing in a financial point of view, there was another fact which awakened considerable interest and discussion, that on this continent there was but one place where this fruit could be grown successfully—on the Pacific Slope between certain parallels. Nearly the whole of the United States and Europe, therefore, had to look to us, and, consequently, the loudest- mouthed anti-railroad farmer entered the apricot monopoly with break-neck speed. What has been the result? Notwithstanding the lightness of the crop, the present year has seen the bottom fall out of the apricot boom. Instead of eager offers of three cents, it has been hard work to induce many of the canneries to pay one and a half cents a pound. The canners themselves were over-sanguine, and they are still overstocked with canned apricots. It hasbeen learned that the Eastern palate does not appreciate our apricots, as vet, and that our own people, in many instances, ‘soon tire of them as a table delicacy. No doubt some of this disfavor has FRUIT GROWING. 55 been due to the imperfect manner in which the fruit has been put up. An apricot is a cross between a plum and a peach, and its best color and flavor are obtainable only at full maturity. But when perfectly ripe, they will not stand shipment ; therefore they are picked comparatively green, and sent to the cannery. Where the cannery is in the immediate vicinity of an orchard, and care is taken to put up apricots of a uniform yellow color and full ripeness only, there has been no trouble in disposing of them ; on the contrary, the fruit has been eagerly sought by those who know the thorough manner in which it is prepared. Had all of our apricots been put on the market in the same condition, I firmly ~ believe that they would have rivaled the peach in popularity, and the check given to their culture would have been avoided. But this experience in fruit growing in California is not an iso- lated case, as nearly all of the fruits have had similar trials. + Xt is only about five years since grape culture also had a spell of unpopularity, and, from one end of the State to the other, acre after acre of grape roots were pulled up and packed away for fire- wood. When grapes finally got as low as seven dollars a ton, many farmers who had a portion of their land in vineyard, thought it would pay far better to put the land into wheat. An acquaintance of mine (an Eastern gentleman) a year or two prior to the time referred to, bought a 500-acre wheat farm, on which was a forty-acre vineyard, the vines of which were of the Mission variety, then the chief claret grape. When the grape market fell as low as eight dollars per ton, he pulled up twenty acres of the vineyard and utilized the roots as firewood. He was the envy of his neighbors in having been so fortunate as to get wheat land cleared so easily and at so little expense. The suc- ceeding year brought a slight improvement in the grape market, and my farmer friend began to reflect upon the firewood busi- ness, with some misgivings as to the wisdom of his action. The second year, the chief topic of discussion all over the coast was, as to which was the more profitable industry to engage in, the rais- ing of grapes, or apricots. Wheat was very low, and at the then ruling price barely paid a profit on farms of less than a thousand acres. My friend was now certain he had made a mistake in grubbing out his vineyard. I took out my note-book, and we figured up the expense and profits of his twenty acres of wheat, according to his own estimate of its yield. Fifteen bushels to the acre was considered a fair average, which would give 300 bushels from his twenty acres. As all grain is shipped in sacks in this State, this would require nearly 150 sacks, costing ten cents each, or $15 for the whole. Wheat was then selling at $1 65 per 100 Ibs. at Sacramento, nine miles distant. The gross income of the twenty-acre tract would be only $250, and the net ~ profit not to exceed six or eight dollars per acre. A few weeks later the grapes from the adjoining twenty acres were picked, at + an expense of two dollars per acre, thrown into a wagon-box in bulk, and delivered at a Sacramento winery at $20 per ton, foot- ing up $800 for the crop. ET TR BRP RY RI a os Ten ot ine Ep" x Ho + n . tg : yx Mp > a BAB : . REAR a oF re on VE! 0 Ng Xoo Phim pe on 56 FRUIT GROWING. The same experience is in store for the orchardist who now contemplates removing his apricots and replacing them with other varieties. The majority of our best informed orchardists look upon the present low price of this fruit, as only temporary. I believe the future will yet return paying prices, and when fruit- drying becomes a recognized industry, as it surely will before many years, even better rates will be quoted than have been here- tofore known. The great advantage of drying fruit is, in saving ~ the entire crop in a condition suitable for marketing at the pleas- ure of the owner. Besides, it does away with the annoyance of finding one’s profits eaten up by commission and freight bills just when there is the largest amount to dispose of and the mar- ket is overstocked. In the dried condition it can also be shipped at lower rates A than canned = goods, and # the producer Eis not obliged | to pay indi- | rectly for su- i gar or tin, or pay freight on Fl water. f Ml course the drying entails 8 more labor, = but the re- turns amply fc om pensate. It was only last year that a fruit dryer aii at Davisville rd 2 Pore IER bought plums 1A EUS ot San Fran- American River, Cape Horn. cisco fortwen- 148 miles from San Francisco—Altitude 3,500 feet. ty-five cents a box—the box itself being worth fifteen cents—and made a clear profit equal to $275 an acre, from fruit raised on an adjoining neighbor’s orchard, which had been shipped to commission mer- chants. Another reason for looking forward for the most satis- factory results of the fruit drying industry on this coast, is in the development of a new process, which cannot be successfully imitated in the Eastern fruit sections of this continent. Evapo- rated fruit has an appearance much more attractive than sun dried fruit, but it is too expensive for the masses of the laboring class. Our sun-dried fruit has the merit of greater cheapness, but in drying is subject to contact with a variety of insects which injure it materially. Last year one of our fruit-growers, who had more originality than the most of them, conceived the idea of combining some of the features of both processes, wherein cheap- FRUIT GROWING. 57 ness of production could be associated with a more presentable article, and the results have been very satisfactory. Time has roved the value of the new process, in developing the fact that bleaching, before subjecting the fruit to the sun’s rays, insures it against injury from insects and brings out a finished article little inferior in color, and equal in taste to that made in the best evaporators. With the entire absence of cloudy weather, fogs and cyclones, during the whole fruit season, it does not require a great stretch of the imagination to place a proper value upon this method of drying fruit in coming years, when freight rates are materially reduced, and the production of cheap dried fruits of a good quality will largely increase consumption. The cue has already been taken up, and the results to the producer are shown in the annexed article from the Riverside Press, of a recent date, on “ How to make Apricots pay: ” “During the past few years, thousands of apricot trees have been planted in orchard form in Southern California. Such was the demand for trees that the nurserymen could not begin to fill the orders, and many trees were planted in dormant bud. This state of affairs continued until last Spring, when the people be- gan to hold up a little and ask, ¢ What will we do with our apri- cots?” The price of nursery trees declined somewhat, and such was the state of the market that our canneries could hold back and only offer one cent per pound for the season’s crop, notwith- - standing the fact that this crop promised to be about one fifth, or less, than what would have been raised with a fair yield. “ Necessity seems to be the mother of invention. Our orchard- . ists had been accustomed to figuring on more than one cent per pound for their apricots, and when the price came down to these figures, some began to look around to see what could be done to save their rapidly diminishing profits.” There is money in rais- ing apricots at one cent per pound, but there is more profit if the orchardist can get two cents, or even three. M. H. Crawford, son of George Crawford of this valley, had a fine young orchard. and he desired to make as much as possible from it. He would have some six or eight tons of fruit and thought it a good time to ex- periment. He had heard that last year some experiments had been very successfully made in drying apricots in the sun, by first having them bleached with sulphur fumes. He hunted up all the information obtainable and then built him an adobe house in which to fumigate his fruit. He gathered his fruit, bleached it, and dried it in the sun, and as a result of his labors he has about 3,000 pounds of dried fruit that has brought him eighteen and a half cents per pound, wholesale, while ordinary dried apricots are a drug in the market at less than half these figures. He found that five pounds of fruit treated in this manner would make one pound of dried fruit, whereas it takes six pounds to make one dried in the ordinary manner. He finds that five days of good weather is sufficient to thoroughly dry his fruit, although, if the nights are foggy, it may require from six to seven days to accom- plish the work in the Riverside Summer climate. Mr. Crawford . i cm CS A —— Be ow Aaa as a a ea TE Es SP SAN A a A A A SN 3 a mans RECHERCHES CE OC “ 58 FRUIT GROWING. states that three cents a pound for dried fruit will fully pay the work of drying and bleaching, and as five pounds of green fruit will make one of dried, under this process, he is getting what is equal to three cents per pound for his fruit, picked in the orchard, and he feels confident that as soon as this quality of dried apri- cots becomes known, there will be no trouble in getting even higher prices than those obtained this year as an experiment. “But Mr. Crawford is not content with this quality of fruit. He has discovered a plan of processing the dried fruit and pack- ing it in drums holding about six pounds each, which puts the fruit in a much better condition for the market, but of course it will have to sell at a higher price, to get back the expense of the extra work. He has only put up a few drums in this manner, to see what expert dealers think of them. The fruit put up in this ~ manner is very attractive, and the samples exhibited at this office seem to be as fine as fruit can be made, being as tender and soft, yet as thoroughly cured as figs put up in a similar manner. The change of programme in the apricot business is inspiring new confidence. We consider an apricot orchard in bearing worth one hundred per cent more to-day than it was a month ago, before the possibilities of sun-drying had been demonstrated. Before, the apricot orchardists were at the mercy of the canners, and canned goods, as usually put up, were not a credit to the State. For delicacy of flavor the canned goods, as put on the market by California packers, bear no comparison with the sun-dried, bleached fruit referred to herein. A man pays one dollar for three cans of apricots containing six pounds of fruit. If dried, ~ that six pounds will make one and a quarter pounds of dried fruit, which, at forty cents per pound, will only amount to one half as much as the canned goods, and is much better, when served on the table properly prepared. * In the first case, the pro- ducer gets, at one cent per pound, six cents for his portion of the dollar; and in the latter case, he gets three, and perhaps four times that amount, while the consumer only pays half as much. But quality is what many people want, regardless of cost, and on this proposition we have no hesitation in saying that the best -quality is obtained in the fruit as dried in the manner described. While in Los Angeles recently we interviewed some of the heaviest dealers in that city, and found the verdict to be that California could never produce enough fruit of that quality to supply the market of the United States. It is Mr. Crawford’s intention to pack his dried apricots in raisin boxes, in five-pound layers, the same as raisins are packed. This will give him three dollars and seventy cents per box for full boxes—nearly double the price paid for raisins.” Wishing to get information from those who have had some experience in the disposal of dried fruit, a letter was addressed to a San Francisco firm, resulting in the following reply : ( FRUIT GROWING. 59 | “SAN Francisco, August 9, 1883. “Mg. 8. 8. SouTEWORTH, Sacramento, California :—Replying to your favor in relatjon to the dried fruit business of California, we would say that, from small beginnings this business has kept pace with the times, and is to-day one of the most permanent, and at the same time one of the best paying industries in this State. A matter of ten years ago, California dried fruits were only produced in small quantities, and were practically unknown at all points east of the Rocky Mountains. To-day, however, all large mar- kets of the East take California dried fruits of nearly all kinds eagerly, paying for the same all the way from twenty to one hun- dred per cent advance over their own product. “As large as the trade now is, however, it is simply yet in its infancy, as millions of people in the Eastern States have never yet seen or tasted the superb dried fruits of this State. “The production of the different dried fruits in this State, last year (1882), approximates as follows : Dried apples, quarters 1,200,000 lbs. Dried apples, sliced ............ eerie ese 500,000 lbs. Dried apples, evaporated 400,000 1bs. . Dried peaches ....................... 4 rtereeserenrrrcetinees 1,000,000 Ibs. Dried pitted plums Dried pears, sliced “This entire quantity of fruit has been placed at remunerative prices to the growers, and the demand for many of the varieties above named has far exceeded the supply, and the demand from Eastern markets this year promises to be greater than ever. In fact, we look upon the business of drying fruits in this State as one of the most permanent and profitable that can possibly be engaged in, for we not only have the United States for a market, ~ but even Europe is now discovering the fine quality of our fruits, and many orders are now being sent here from that quarter, which will open up a still wider and greater field. | “California raisins and California French prunes, have already driven the imported goods out of the market for nearly the whole western territory from the Pacific Coast to the Missouri River; and it is now only a question of a few years with the great orchards and raisin vineyards dotting the State, when we shall drive out entirely all imported prunes, raisins, almonds, and walnuts from the New York and other Eastern markets. With thousands of acres of land yet unoccupied in the valleys and foothills of Cali- fornia; with a soil capable of producing nearly everything of the tropical and temperate zones; with sunshine nearly all the year round, why should not our Eastern friends, with their long Win- ters, their cyclones, their thunder showers, and their lightning strokes, silently ‘fold their tents. and steal away to make their mica NH UTE rr i PRT Ah I er AP Th 3 T re a oy . a gg I LIN RS SR tg IS aA A “ Ee WEE (eo Sabin ou ad wre taal SRT hal ee Sd a De A cs Wy a ow Fai Faded or 60 EXPENSE AND PROFIT OF VALLEY ORCHARDS. homes and dwell under their own ‘vine and fig tree’ in this, the ‘promised land.’ ig “ Unpeeled sun-dried peaches are worth to-day, eleven to twelve cents ; evaporated, eighteen to nineteen cents. The shrinkage in drying ‘sun-dried,’ is four to five pounds ; in evaporated, seven to eight pounds. “California French prunes, dried, are now worth eleven to twelve cents. The shrinkage is about three pounds. “Yours, etc., GEORGE W. MEADE & Co.” Wishing to satisfy myself, regarding the statement of Califor- nia dried fruit bringing a higher price in Eastern markets than Eastern fruit, I secured a Chicago price list for August, '83, and found the following quotations: Eastern unpeeled dried peaches, six cents; California unpeeled, per pound, fourteen cents. Under the head of canned fruits I also find : Eastern peaches, two-pound cans, $1 30 per dozen ; California peaches, $2 75 per dozen. East- ern green gages, $1 10 per dozen; California green gages, $2 65 per dozen. California egg plums, $2 65 ; California apricots, $2 00 to $2 75. Se : | EXPENSE AND PROFIT OF VALLEY | ORCHARDS. HE cost of an orchard, of course, varies according to the variety of trees planted and the quality of the soil. East- ern people will no doubt be somewhat surprised to learn that our own experienced orchardists consider it good investment of capital to pay as high as $150 and $200 an acre, in localities where it has been demonstrated that the soil was suited to the growing of certain fruits. The orchardist whose trees have been in full bearing for a few years, has a practical knowledge of their past production and the profits thereof, and looks forward to securing even better results in the future, believing that the crisis in fruit culture in California has been passed. Hence, purchases of more land, at what would otherwise seem ridiculously high figures, is of almost daily occurrence in some localities. Noting this disposition on the part of shrewd and experienced fruit growers, persons having surplus capital, and others engaged in some business occupation or other, as proprietors or employes, are buying small tracts all over the State, with a view to securing comfortable homes to which they may some day retire. I have a friend among this class, who last Spring bought twenty- three acres of the best valley land and set it all out to fruit, with the intention of becoming an orchardist. He is now a merchant in one of the Sierra Nevada villages, where the snow lies twenty feet on the level when the peach trees in his valley orchard are in EXPENSE AND PROFIT OF VALLEY ORCHARDS. 61 bloom. The following letter from him will give the reader reli- able information as to the cost of securing a small valley orchard, which, in five years, will bring $500 per acre under the hammer : “Cisco, Cal., July 27, 1883. “8. 8. SourawoRTH: DEAR SIR :—I attended the auction sale of 600 acres of an estate at Vacaville, last Winter, and was so well pleased with the locality that I bought me a little home of twenty-three acres. It is situated about a mile from the village, the front of the tract being on a line representing the middle of Vaca Valley, and the rear adjoining the first bench of the foot- hills on the west. 1 paid $150 an acre. While there I made a contract for plowing, at three dollars an acre, and fifty cents for harrowing. Since then I have purchased my trees and vines, and had them all set out. I append the variety and cost : 600 one year old apricots, at 25 cents 300 one year old Bartlett pears, at 30 cents 200 one year old Petite prunes, at 274 cents 100 one year old Orange cling peach, at 25 cents 150 one year old McKevitt peach, at 20 cents 50 one year old Solway peach, at 20 cents 100 one year old Susqnehana peach, at 20 cents 150 one year old white nectarines, at 20 cents _ 50 one year old black Tartarian cherries, at 25 cents 2400 grape cuttings, not rooted, at $3 per 1000 “I planted my trees twenty-one feet apart, as the shape of the plat indicated this distance to the best advantage. My vines were placed ten and a half feet apart, or 400 to the acre, and took up six acres of the tract, leaving seventeen acres for the fruit trees. The planting of the whole, in a first-class manner, cost me $67 75, and I have since had it cultivated once, at a cost of $86, and hoed once, costing $43 45. I presume it should be cul- tivated again. I have a crop of corn between the rows, which, I hear, is looking well. My vines have not done well, but the trees look fine. Up to the present date the cost of the place is as fol- lows : | Cost of land Preparing for planting Trees and vines Total cost to date Cost of land per acre Cost of trees per acre Cost of labor per acre Total cost per acre “These are the exact figures as taken from my books. The land should have had another cultivation, and this would have brought the whole expense to about $185 per acre. As the same quality 62 EXPENSE AND PROFIT OF VALLEY ORCHARDS. of land in the valley is now rated at $175, after the wheat is taken off, I don’t feel very sick over the investment. If your Eastern friend wants it, he can have it at $250 an acre any time before Winter plowing. “ Respectfully yours, “R. A. CAMPBELL.” Mr. Campbell hired all the labor done on the place at the high- est figures, and his crop of corn would more than pay the ex- penses if it had been properly handled ; as it is, it will equal the expense, or nearly so. It is customary among our orchardists to plant some kind of cereal between the rows of trees until the lat- ter begin to bear, and as the climate permits of two successful crops in one season, it is apparent that the cultivation of an or- chard can not only be made a self-supporting labor, but a source of considerable profit. The valley where Mr. Campbell’s orchard is situated, is noted for the early ripening of its products. The first green peas of this season were shipped from there on the 24th of March, thus securing the very highest rates. A half dozen rows of these early peas could be planted between the trees and be nearly ready for market by the time the trees com- menced to leave. Then corn can be planted, or a few rows of string-beans, with tomatoes between. Such land will produce from fifteen to twenty tons of tomatoes to the acre, and the can- _ neries will take the crop at $10 per ton. The string-beans will bring $30 per ton, and the peas $35, for canning purposes. Lima beans are also raised without staking and yield from 1,500 to 2,000 pounds to the acre, usually worth $3 00 per hundred. Of course only a proportionate yield could be expected from an or- chard, but a good revenue could be obtained until the bearing year, and I consider it an advantage to pursue this plan for a year or two after that. I know that such an argument is not sci- entific—that the very laws of Nature seem to refute such a the- ory—but I have seen such remarkable proofs of the fertility of soil on this coast, that I am almost inclined to dispute existing theories as to the exhaustion of soils by continued cultivation. There are wheat fields in the vicinity of Sacramento, which have raised annual crops for more than twenty years without a parti- cle of fertilization, and their later crops are better than tae early ones. I have seen peach trees, between which blackberries were grown for five years, almost covering the intervening space, and yet these trees bore as heavily and looked as well in every re- spect as those cultivated according to the rules of modern horti- cultural science. Proof of this will be found in the chapter on “Foothill Orchards.” The fourth year, from one to two baskets of fruit may be ex- pected from each peach tree, and even more from the apricot trees the following year. Both will bear some fruit the preceding year, perhaps enough to pay the expense of cultivation, but it would be better for the trees if the fruit were not allowed to ma- ture. Some idea of the value of Mr. Campbell’s orchard in future EXPENSE AND PROFIT OF VALLEY ORCHARDS. 63 years, can perhaps be had from the following points, which I learned the present season during a visit to the orchard of Mr. W. W. Smith, on adjoining land. Mr. Smith bought his place of 160 acres in 1873, paying $60 per acre. At that time nearly the entire valley was used for pasturing cattle, and when the new purchaser announced his intention of putting fruit trees on every foot of his land, as fast as he could afford to do so, the Missou- rians around there put him down as a “big-head.” That was, remember, but ten years ago. Forty acres of his land is now in cherries, thirty in peaches, and the remainder in other fruits. The cherry trees are seven, eight and nine years old now, and their average yield is $2 50 per tree. As there are 150 trees to the acre, the receipts amount to $375 per acre. Last year his oldest peach trees each averaged four boxes of fruit. This year the average yield of 2,500 of these trees was about the same, which, at seventy-five cents per box, amounts to $3 for each tree, or $450 income from each acre. At this yield and price of fruit, the income from the forty acres of cherries, and less than twenty acres of peaches, has been $21,500. These are the owner's fig- ures. : Suppose we cut down this estimate—say $3,000—owing to a short cherry crop and too high a price for peaches, and still it leaves an income for the year, of $18,500. Deduct one half this sum for expenses, interest, taxes, etc.—an extravagance in ex- penditure that does not accord with the real condition of affairs —and there is left a net profit of $9,250 for fifty-six acres of or- chard, or $165 per acre. The whole of Mr. Smith’s land will soon be covered with full-bearing trees. Last Winter, he built him a country villa worth, I should say, $8,000. I take much pleasure in offering this instance as illustrating what was said in a pre- vious chapter on “ Our Fruit-growers’ Surroundings,” in relation to the character of their residences after a few years of economy and industry. After completing the preceding paragraphs on valley orchards, I submitted the manuscript to one of our Sacramento River orchardists who resides a few miles below the city, for his opin- ion as to the correctness of my figures regarding the profits of fruit raising on our best valley lands. He said: “I should not like to admit that my peach trees, nine or ten years old, netted me only $165 an acre; and I guess if you added fifty dollars more to your figures you would be nearer the truth. Why, I have 400 Bartlett pears, eight years old, on two and a half acres of ground, and I sold one thousand boxes of forty pounds each, for one dollar a box. This year I got only seventy-five cents.” The following extract from the San Francisco Bulletin of Aug. 1883, presents some figures on fruit growing in Santa Clara Val- ley, where the rainfall is lighter than in Vaca Valley. The esti- mate of the value of a three or four year old peach orchard, is higher than I believe the facts will substantiate, unless the crop was exceptionally good and was sold at early fruit rates: 64 EXPENSE AND PROFIT OF VALLEY ORCHARDS. “ SAN Jose, August 6, 1883. “ One of the model orchards of Santa Clara Valley is owned by Messrs. O’Banion & Kent. It contains eighty-five acres, planted with prunes, apricots, peaches and almonds in judicious propor- tions, so that there is no fear of a complete failure of the crop even in the worst season. It is probably the most carefully cul- tivated piece of land in the county. As soon as the weeds have fairly started after the first rains, it is thoroughly plowed, and hoed by hand wherever the plow cannot reach. Then the culti- vator is run over it at short intervals until the heavy rains have ceased, and then it is plowed again, so as to completely loosen the soil which may have become somewhat packed by the rains. ‘The cultivator follows again at frequent intervals all through the season, even up to the present time, and the hoes are kept almost constantly at work, so that not an inch of soil is left unstirred. The result is, that the soil is almost as fine as flour, and there is plenty of moisture all through the Summer. ~ “Of course all this work costs money, but it is money well spent. There is no need of irrigation at all under such condi- tions, and no arrangements have been made for a supply of water for such purpose. Indeed, Messrs. O’Banion & Kent do not be- lieve in irrigation. Their experience has convinced them that they can grow larger fruit and of finer flavor without water than with it, and few who have seen their magnificent crops this sea- son will venture to doubt it. Their peaches and apricots com- mand the highest figures named in the market, and the quantity they raised is almost without parallel. Their four year old peach trees brought them $400 an acre this year, and ten acres of three year old, and seventeen acres of four year old apricot trees brought $4,538, without counting a ton of choice dried apricots which they have still on hand. Their prunes last year brought $251 an acre, and this year they are likely to do even better than that. Such returns from trees three, four, five and six years old, are certainly very satisfactory. “And the cost of the very elaborate system of cultivation adopted is really very slight, compared with its advantages. It will not exceed twelve dollars an acre on the average, and prob- ably ten dollars would cover it. It is the constant care and almost affectionate solicitude which these shrewd and energetic gentlemen bestow upon their trees, that tell in the crops. Noth- ing is ever done out of place. Not a plow or a cultivator is ever permitted in the orchard when the ground is not in proper con- dition, and all the pruning and other work is done exactly at the right time and place. Nor is it a matter of mere routine. O’Ban- ion & Kent are no slaves to precedent. They are close students of nature, and close followers of nature’s plans. Their trees are all permitted to branch out as near the ground as they will; very little thinning out is done, but the branches are headed back somewhat closely, the aim being to form a compact mass from the ground up, rather than a naked trunk headed by spreading branches. As the result of this treatment, some of their trees FOOTHILL ORCHARDS. 65 are 80 low that their two or three hundred pounds of fruit may be picked from the ground, and a ladder is hardly necessary in ‘the whole orchard. In’ a word, the pruning has been done all along to develop the fruit, rather than the wood, but the system has its advantages even in the appearance of the trees, and there is certainly no healthier orchard in the whole valley. “Messrs. O’Banion & Kent are not of those who believe that the fruit business will be overdone. They do not expect always to realize the high prices of this season, but they are fully confi- dent that there will always be a good profit on raising fruit of the proper kinds. If prices are lower, consumption will increase tenfold, and all the good fruit that can be raised will find a ready market. Thirty years ago, they say, fruit was not worth one fourth of the present prices, and it is now worth double what it would fetch four years ago. Production has increased enormously, but consumption has more than kept pace with it, and every year new and cheaper methods of preparing fruit for market are brought into use, so that fruit is coming to be as much of a staple ~ article of consumption as wheat, and is likely to continue so.” \ WHAT A LABORING MAN HAS ACCOM- PLISHED IN THE FOOTHILLS IN FIVE YEARS. made my first visit to the foothills, spending most of the time at Newcastle, the center of the fruit-growing section on the line of the Central Pacific Railway. While there I became much interested in the progress of a small fruit farm which had been grubbed out in the Winter of 78-79. Off seven acres of newly cleared land, the owner proposed not only to make a liv- ing, but to start a respectable bank account. I had already learned so much of the productive capacity of California soil un- der the influence of its mild climate, that I did not doubt that the industrious owner would succeed in his undertaking, and I thought if*I ever engaged in the same work, I would like to lo- cate in just such a spot as Newcastle, where I could see the speedy overland train flitting by, and enjoy the convenience of a daily mail from both the East and the West. There was the little rose-trellised cottage on the side-hill, protected from the harsh north winds of Winter, and facing the cool south breezes in Summer, while to the right and left and below, spread out on a gentle slope, the goodly domain of a fifteen-acre ranch, at some time to be wholly planted with fruit trees. In my fancy I 5 |} the month of June, 1881, I took a vacation of a few days and 66 FOOTHILL ORCHARDS. saw the pride of the owner as, sitting on his broad porch, he cast his eye over his fifteen acres of full-bearing trees. I pic- tured to myself his calm enjoyment when, the day’s labor ended, he quaffed his fragrant cigar amid such surroundings, and lis- tened to the music of the irrigating brook, dancing past his very door, and the calls of our California relatives of “ Bob White ” sounding in the distance. Such were the visions of ideal com- fort which passed before my mind one evening as I sat on the hill above Mr. Porter’s place, musing upon the poetry of fruit- growing, forgetting for the while that, as a general thing, the “dignity of labor” is best appreciated by those who never work. vrrE— - In the Fall of ’82, I made inquiries con- cerning the | contemplated ~ bank account, and learned that the gross 5 o proceeds from the sale of fruit that year were $1,400, and when I ge decided to oll publish this pamphlet, I selected this fifteen-acre farm to illus- trate the pos- sibilities of fruit- growing American River. in California, - with no capi- * £09 mlies from San Francisco—Altitude 3,884 feet. tal, or at least very little money at starting. On the first of August of the present year, I again visited Newcastle, for the purpose of interviewing the proprietor, the report of which I herewith append : | Question. Mr. Porter, I am publishing a small work on the expenses, profits, and healthfulnsss of fruit-growing on this coast, for the purpose of giving Eastern people as much information as possible on this subjeet. I believe that such information, coming from reliable sources, and not biased by advertising patronage, will have considerable influence over those who are thinking of making homes in this State. You have been recommended to me as one of the most thorough fruit-growers in the Newcastle section—as one who is reliable in his statements, and who keeps. an accurate account of his receipts. I have called upon you, therefore, for the purpose of investigating the method by which a day laborer can be converted into a landed proprietor, sur- FOOTHILL ORCHARDS. 67 rounded by luxuries. Have you any objection to my using your name in connection with this matter? Answer. None whatever. I feel a little proud of my success, for, although I have worked harder the last five years than I ever worked before, I have something beyond a mere living to show for my labor. Besides, you know, there is some satisfaction in the fact that you are your own boss. Q. I understand you bought your place of fifteen acres in the Winter of ’78-'79. What did you pay for it? | A. Fifteen dollars an acre, without a fence, and covered with chapparal. | Q. That was $225 for the whole place. How much cash did you pay down? A. None. I bought from a party for whom I had been working. Q. What is the value of such land now, siuated as favorably as yours is? A. Well, I hardly know. The man that I bought from, died the following year, and the executors of his estate sold the fifty acres adjoining mine, with the improvements, consisting of a small house and a few acres of orchard, for thirty dollars an acre. I don’t think you could get twenty acres like mine for less than forty dollars an acre, now, unless you should go some distance from the railroad. Q. You must have had some money to start with? A. Yes; I had enough to build my house, or at least to put it in condition to’live in comfortably. Q. That is somewhat indefinite. If it is not too private a matter for publication, just tell me exactly how much ready money . you had when you bought this place? A. Well, I had in cash, or its equivalent, nearly $250. Q. Did you have some stock or farming implements? A. No, sir; all I had was an ax and a grub-hoe, and a little over $200 in money. ‘Q." What did you do on your place the first season? A. I grubbed outenough land to plant one hundred trees, four hundred grape cuttings, five hundred red raspberries, three hun- dred blackberries, and ten thousand strawberry plants. The ber- ries were planted for the most part between the rows of trees. Q. But how did you support your family during the first rear? ’ A. I worked for my neighbors at $1 50 per day, and worked on my own place in the early morning and many an hour after dark.” The family did a great deal of the planting and other light work. I tell you there were few idle moments that season and the next. Q. What did you accomplish the second year? A. I cleared enough land during the Winter to put in, alto- gether, about seven acres. I also worked a small place on shares, and did some work by the day. Q. You must have had some berries to sell the second year? A. Yes: the berry business helped me out considerably. I FOOTHILL ORCHARDS. had to hire help that season for both places. I realized $450 from the crop on my own place. Q. What was the result of the next year’s work? A. I grubbed out about two acres more, dnd set it out to fruit trees. I don’t recollect my exact income for that year, but I know I cleared $900—all of it from the berry crop. I had a few peaches and other fruits, but not enough to count. Q. Did you ship your fruit to San Francisco? A. No; I sold it all to buyers at our depot. Q. Don’t you mean $900 sales, for that year, instead of $900 of profit? I bought three boxes of strawberries that year in the Sacramento market for twenty-five cents at retail, and it would seem that those figures would not give a very large margin for the producer. A. No; I mean just what I say; and I can show you the fig- ures if you wish, for I have kept an account of every dollar received since I bought the place. Strawberries got pretty low that year; as low as six cents, at one time; but we generally get better prices here at home than in the Sacramento or San Fran- cisco market. Our market is mostly in the mountains, and our fruit being about the first to ripen, we get into the mountain towns, many times, before the snow has left the streets. Of course this gives us a big price for our early crop, and more than offsets the lowest rates of the season. This year our shippers have found ~ that we can send our fruit farther east than heretofore, in good condition, and this has opened a larger market. We now reach Cheyenne and Salt Lake, and it won’t be long before a reduction of freights will let us into Chicago. The distance may be too long for strawberries, but I think it won’t be many months before you will see California small fruits in the Chicago market by the’ 15th or 20th of April, and peaches by tbe middle of June, It costs us over $800 a car now to send our fruit to Chicago by fast freight ; that is, attached to an express train; but I think in- creased production and future competition will soon settle this high tariff business. I look forward to the time when a fruit express will be run from California to Chicago and St. Louis on the same time as the passenger trains now make, and it won’t be long before we see it. Q. Did you hire any help the third year? A. None at all. Q. How did you get along last year? A. Did not make much more than the year before. I had some peaches, but I rooted out a good many strawberries, as they took up too much time. My whole receipts were $1,400. Q. I learn that you have rented to Chinamen this year, on shares, and I suppose you can give me an accurate report of receipts up to date? A. Yes; I thought I would take it a little easier this year, and rented to Chinamen; but they don’t take as good care of the place as they should, and I work about as hard as usual. They FOOTHILL ORCHARDS. 69 receipts. Q. What do you expect the receipts will be this year? A. Up to August 1st, my sales book figures up $1,500, as you can see for yourself; and, judging by the quantity of peaches and other fruit yet on the trees, I think we will take in $2,200. Q. So you are sure of a clear profit of $1,000 anyway? A. Yes; I shall have more than that, because I make enough off my hens to pay for all my groceries. I keep a horse and cow on less than a half acre of alfalfa, from which I have already taken three cuttings, and will cut twice more. I am also fatten- ing five pigs without buying any feed, and raise all my own vege- tables. | Q. I notice you have blackberries between some of your trees. Don’t you think they ought to be removed as soon as the fruit trees begin to bear? | A. No; I donot. I Lave planted more between rows where I formerly had strawberries. Come down into the orchard. Here are a few rows of peaches, set out in 79, and between them are just three hundred hills of blackberries. You see the whole ground is shaded, and the sun cannot get to the trunks of the trees. Over there you see as many rows of the same kind of peaches without anything between them, and you can’t see any difference in the crop. If there is any difference in the foliage, you must notice that the latter has more the appearance of being sunburnt than the others. Those with the berries between them do all the work, except marketing the fruit, and give me half the " have a fresher look, and I know that they yield as well as those without them. The fact is, the blackberry bushes shade the ground and prevent the evaporation of moisture, and I am going to keep them there as long as they bear well ; and they don’t do their best until about the eighth year. When necessary, I will cut back the ends of the peach limbs, and give the berries a good chance. Those three hundred hills brought us $204 this year. Q. I should think cultivation would be more difficult where the ground is so much covered? A. It is, so far as the use of a horse is concerned. I do all my work with one horse, and I get along all right before the new growth gets a start; then I use a fork, which is much better for the soil than any cultivation. N Q. Don’t you believe in artificial fertilizers? A. Yes, I do; but they are not a necessity here yet, and won't be for some years. As long as we have to pick off half our fruit every year, to prevent overbearing, we needn’t trouble ourselves much about fertilizers. We get enough of that in irrigating, if the soil is kept mellow in the meantime. Q. Now, will you give me a detailed report of your receipts from your strawberries? : A. I have now just two thousand plants between my fruit trees, and I sent the first lot to market on the tenth of April, get- ting $3 75 a case, or twenty-five cents a basket. A basket weighs a trifle less than a pound, and measures less than a quart. 1 got FOOTHILL ORCHARDS. twenty-five cents a basket from April tenth to twenty-first; twenty cents, twenty-first to twenty-third ; nineteen cents, twenty- third to twenty-eighth ; fifteen cents, twenty-eighth to May first ; twelve cents, first to seventh ; eleven cents, seventh to tenth; and ten cents, from tenth to date. This counts up $95 85 for April ; $260 for May ; $60 for June, and $93 for J uly, or $508 to August first. | Q. Why did you get more in July than in June? A. Because the second crop was ripening. I am now taking off nine cases a week, and will average nearly that up to the mid- dle of October, the prices getting higher as the season draws toward a close. . I suppose your Eastern readers will set this down as another California lie, as they usually do, when they find a state- ment which conflicts with their ideas of horticulture. | Q. What do you call a case of strawberries? A. A box containing fifteen baskets. Q. What does a case cost? A. About twenty-four cents. The boxes cost ten cents each, and the baskets eight dollars a thousand. Q. I see that you wrap your peaches in paper. Is not that a waste of time and an unnecessary expense? A. Yes; it involves both, but we generally get paid for it in increased prices. The most of our peaches go to the mountains, and we can send them further in good condition if they are wrapped. Very few of our peaches go to the canneries. How do your prices average during the season? A. We shipped our first lot this year on the ninth of June, getting $1 50 a box of “standard.” This size rarely gets lower than sixty cents; smaller and more inferior lotg got as low, as forty cents a box. Q. What do you call a © standard” box? A. A box measuring four and one half inches deep, twelve inches wide, and eighteen inches long. Of standard peaches, it takes just seventy to fill it—two layers, seven in length and five in width. A larger peach brings a higher price. The weight of a box is twenty pounds. , How much have your five-year-old peach trees borne this year? A. Between four and five boxes each. Q. How much land have you in bearing at present? A. I have eleven acres set out, and seven just commencing to bear well. Q. How much water do you use? A. Two inches, under six-inch pressure; that is, all the water that will run through a hole one inch high and two inches long, placed six inches beneath the surface of the supply head. Q. How long do you irrigate? A. I generally commence about June first, and continue to September. Q. What does your water cost? A. Twenty-five cents an inch, or fifty cents for each twenty- SOME OF THE DRAWBACKS. 71 four hours. The company furnishes water free the first year of new orchards. : Mr. Porter now has a comfortable house, small barn, hennery, horse, cow, and a few goats pastured on land bought recently. His place is all paid for, and he doesn’t owe a dollar. Eastern people who enter California by the Central Pacific Railway, can see what a poor man can accomplish here on a small piece of land in five years, by watching for the first orchard on the left below Newcastle Station, and adjoining the railway track. SOME OF THE DRAWBACKS. HE preceding pages on fruit-growing in general in this State, convey information which I think will be found valuable to those desirous of learning something of the business before taking up their residence in California. I say “valuable,” because I know the compilation has not been influenced by any interest beyond the sale of the work, and because its author has no direct or indirect interest in fruit-growing, fruit-growers, or fruit lands, beyond that which any citizen might have who desires to see his adopted State settled up by such an intelligent class of people as fruit-growers usually are. There may be some errors in the fig- ures given, but if so, the inaccuracies are not such as would be apt to result in serious injury to the finances of any one who ac- cepts the statements for facts. If he should desire to engage in raising wine grapes in Napa Valley, for instance, or the raisin grape on such lands as are described in the chapter devoted to this branch of the vine-growing industry, he will no doubt find the average yield per acre, as represented by me, somewhat less than he will take to market. If he does his own work, or has it done by his own boys, he will also find his outlay much less per acre than has been stated. Although not a fruit-grower, I have given the pursuit much at- tention since becoming a resident of California, with the view of some time laying before the public the results of my investiga- tions of the costs, profits and drawbacks of a business which seems to be attracting the attention of a whole continent, believ- ing that if Eastern people, with Eastern ideas of economy, could secure impartial information on these points, they would be able to foresee what is in store for them before deciding upon remov- ing hither for the purpose of engaging in this industry, and could be governed thereby; and in searching for light on a subject with which I was but partially familiar, much difficulty has been encountered in the effort to secure the most reliable data. Very few fruit-growers who own small orchards or vineyards keep an account of their receipts and expenditures, or have any definite 72 | SOME OF THE DRAWBACKS. knowledge of the average yield of a tree, vine or acre. They only know how much cash they receive for their respective crops, as a whole, and frequently exagerate when mentioning the figures to any person (other than the Assessor), and I imagine some of the more extensive growers have refused me information for fear of its influence on that same public official. In presenting what I may call the “ flowery ” side of the Cali- fornia fruit-grower’s life, I have not forgotten that there are obsta- cles to be overcome here, as elsewhere, and that there are climatic conditions which, to say the least, are not always agreeable. The new comer will enjoy the bright sunshine for a while—until the hot weather sets in—and then he will begin to long for an Eastern shower. He will see the grass dry up and the roads become shockingly dusty ; the wife will miss her former, female acquaintances, and perhaps will find society different from that “at home,” and many, many times they will both sit down together and ask each other if it has paid,” to leave all the associations of their former lives for a home in this land beside the sea. In August and September they will see the mercury rise frequently above 100 degrees in the shade, especially if they are located among the hills, where the ocean breezes are ob- structed. In the valleys these breezes generally prevail in the late afternoon and evening, but the roads are dustier than in the foothills, and the broad expanse of brown fields under the blis- , tering midday sun, are not apt to be very inviting to those whose recollection of former Summerings is associated with verdure-clad meadows that are ever kept fresh and green by frequent showers of rain. In the foothills. the picture is modified and softened to some extent by the evergreen oaks, firs and chaparral, which are native to the locality, and cover the hills to their Very apex. With the arrival of October the heated season ends, and the immigrant begins to experience some of the pleasures of life on this coast. All through this month, one day of opal sunshine succeeds another, and the temperature falls to about seventy-five degrees. The climate of November is very similar, but toward its close the long looked for Winter rains set in. The leaves of the deciduous trees fall, but do not take on the beautiful Autum- nal tints so characteristic of the flora of the East. They simply die, after having served their purpose, but are not killed by frost. The grass now begins to grow, and all over the valleys and con- tiguous foothills may be seen for the ensuing six months, one vast carpet of emerald green. Live stock is now driven down from the mountain ranges, where it has been kept during the Summer, and pastured in the valleys and on the surrounding hills below the snow belt. Our newly arrived Eastern friends have now experienced a decided change of heart—they have, as it were, lost their extreme sentimentality, and have only com- miseration for those who are yet thousands of miles away and contemplating with anything but pleasure, the prospect of a five months’ siege of snow, af ice, and slush, and sleet, and close rooms with their attendant evils. SOME OF THE DRAWBACKS. 73 In December the frosts appear, and occasionally ice will be seen in the early mornings, disappearing with the rise of the sun. Rain is not frequent, but when it does rain it pours, as a general thing. It is, however, a mistaken notion with many Eastern peo- ple, that it rains here all through the Winter. It.is not unusual to see a new comer on the arrival of the first rainstorm purchas- ing an umbrella for nearly every member of his family, but he soon learns that it is much less an article of necessity here than anywhere in the East. It will rain for an entire day, or perhaps longer; then the sun will come out and gladden the face of Nature, and the most delightful weather may prevail for a week or more. After this there will be a few cloudy or foggy days, followed "perhaps by more light showers. To give a more accurate idea of an average California Winter than I have yet seen published iI append the following record for the months of December, January and February, in 1879-80, for different locali- ties on the coast: SOME FEATURES OF A CALIFORNIA WINTER. 0JUSWIBIIBS : rsa lg 00SIoURI] UBS lion ues Lowest temperature for December, 1879. Lowest temperature for January, 1880. .. Lowest temperature for February, 1880. . Days at and below 32 in December Days at and below 32 in January Days at and below 32 in February Days above 32 to 35 in three months Days above 35 to 40 in three months Days above 40 to 50 in three months Days above 50 in three months Days above 3 in three months Days above Highest temperature in December, 1879.. Highest temperature in January, 1880. .. Highest temperature in February, 1880. . Inches of rain in December, 1879 Inches of rain in January, 1880 Inches of rain in February, 1880 Inches of rain in March, 1880 Inches of rain in April, 1880 Inches of rain in May, 1880 Inches December 1st to June 1st Inches for three Winter months Days in which rain fell Cloudy days Clear days Days partly cloudy and partly clear Foggy days /’ For the year 1882 there were 251 perfectly clear days, 71 fair, 43 cloudy and 62 rainy. 4 SOME OF THE DRAWBACKS. Another feature of the fruit-grower’s surroundings (in some localities more than others), is the necessity for one continual struggle with the fruit pests, which injure nearly all our fruit to a greater or less extent, according to variety. The warm weather together with the unusual length of the season, produces two broods, -and sometimes more, of nearly every kind of insect em —— . known (and unknown) to science as a habitant of the temperate ‘and tropical | zones. There BR is the codlin ® moth after the apples; the slug after the pears; perhaps a hundred spe- BE cies of scale ® insects suck- 8, ing the vital- ity out of both - ® leaves and ¥4 fruit; spiders 7 of various u colors after 229 miles from SIR Coverig. 5,854 feet the olives and almonds; hoppers on the vines, and phylloxera on the root. In this con- nection the San Francisco Bulletin sdys, in an article under the - haga of « Draphiaks to Fruit Culture: ” ; or something more than twenty vears California w from all the pests which have ravaged the fruit orchards of Atlantic States. To-day every pest known on the other side of the country 1s at work in the orchards of this State. It is of little use to inquire how they came here. They are here; and the fruit orchard which is free from all these pests is an excep- tion. The woolly aphis, scale-bug, curculio and red spider are at work in the orchards, and the phylloxera is at work in the vine- yards. Now that these pests have come, the ravages which they are making, especially in orchards, is very great. They multiply with marvelous rapidity. The profits of fruit-growing in this State are hereafter to be materially affected by the whole brood of pests, which are taking possession of the orchards and are adding greatly to the expenses of keeping the trees in tolerably good. condition. Probably the climate here favors their rapid multiplication. The Horticultural Commission, in their late report, deal with the question in an intelligent way, but rather with remedies than with statistics showing the extent of the rav- SOME OF THE DRAWBACKS. : 75 ages already made in this State. If one orchard in a neighbor- hood is affected, it is certain that every orchard within a radius of five miles will be surely affected by the same pests. If the party will not clear his orchard of the pests, it would be better for his neighbors to buy him out and do the work themselves. That has been done in some instances. A bill was introduced in the Legislature which provided that when a party who has an orchard infested with scale-bug, aphis, or any other injurious par- asite, neglects, after notice, to apply the remedies authorized, persons may enter upon his premises, apply the remedies and collect the costs, which become a lien upon the property. Such a provision may look a little harsh. But unless some stringent measure is enforced, the business of fruit-growing in California will at no distant day encounter such discouragements that it will cease to be profitable on the scale which it is now prosecuted. “It has been predicted that fruit growing would become the leading industry of the State. But it will not be, unless means of exemption can be found from the ravages of parasites, some of which can be found in nearly every orchard where remedies have not already been applied. The almond, plum, peach, apri- cot, apple and pear are all affected by some one or more of the parasites mentioned. A citizen in one of the bay towns, who prides himself upon his thrifty small orchard about his house, found that last year a number of his pear trees, while set very full, cast nearly all the young fruit. He had no suspicion that there was a single parasite about. An experienced horticulturist suggested that if he would examine carefully, at the base of nearly every fruit bud on his pear trees he would find one or more scale- bugs. The examination showed that the parasite, which could not be seen at the distance of a yard, was at the base of every fruit bud on all the trees which lost their fruit last year, clinging there. They take the vitality out of the bud, so that when the young fruit sets it cannot advance, but falls to the ground. What was true of his own trees was found to be true of the trees of the same kind in all neighboring orchards. The most effective rem- edy for the scale-bug and woolly aphis is the simple one of con- centrated lye dissolved in water and thrown upon the trees in a spray until they are saturated.” ) After the fruit pests comes malaria, which is taxing the inge- nuity of scientists everywhere. It is found all over California, excepting in a strip along the coast and in the mountainous sec- tions above certain altitudes. It will be found the whole extent of the Sacramento Valley—more in the southern than in the northern portion—in the foothills below a certain elevation, and more where irrigation is practiced; in all the Southern Califor- nia colonies distant from the coast, and even in the City of San Francisco in some localities shut out from the sea breezes. Sac- ramento City has had the reputation in the past of being the very hot-bed of malarial disorders, as has also the famous warm belt of the foothills, but not one case exists now, in either place, where there were a dozen three years ago. To many, it is not at Be Aa er a mir a 76 SOME OF THE DRAWBACKS. all surprising that both of the places meéntioned have been afflicted by such diseases in times past. Both are subjected to three months of hot weather every year, and both indulge in an extravagant use of water for irrigation. The foothill fruit-grow- ers employ double the quantity that would be necessary, if they made more use of the cultivator. It is a common occurrence to. see pools of water lying stagnant beside the road or in ravines having no outlet. In this city we take great pride in our grassy lawns and the luxurious growth of flowers during nearly every month of the year, but, to secure this, we keep the soil saturated with water, and, not satisfied with that, we pour it upon our side- walks and our streets. The sun does the rest. Yes, we have hot weather in the daytime, at intervals, during three months of the year, but we always find it comfortable to sleep under blankets at night. We have malaria, varying in virulence according to the locality ; still, we all manage to keep alive, and when we go East to see our friends, I do not think our appearance is so affected by either disease or medicine as to awaken the pity of our friends. Our roads are dusty in Summer and muddy in Winter; our crops are blighted by the north wind and our dispositions severely tried during its usual three days’ course, but we could not freeze to death if we tried; we never have a complete failure of grain, hay or fruit crops, even with a slight rain-fall, our northers and our bugs; we never die from sunstroke in the hottest of weather, and we are not at the mercy of storms or cyclones when we go 'picnicing. N otwithstanding the features described in the preceding pages, and which some people term “drawbacks,” ninety-nine out of every hundred who come here from the East, would not again live beyond the snow- capped Sierras for the best living offered as a gratuity. In closing this chapter on « drawbacks,” and the off-coloring ~ of the subjects discussed, it is but just to remind our Eastern readers that there are other States in the Union where malaria prevails, and with far more serious results. As old a State as Connecticut is notoriously prominent in this respect, so much so 80, indeed, that even the prohibition of artificial fertilizers has been proposed as one of a number of remedial agents. Blue- blooded venerable old Massachusetts has been so disturbed by the presence of malarial fever in various parts of the State, that commissions have been appointed to investigate the causes thereof and suggest remedies. Dr. Chadbourne, of Williams College, an expert in malarial disorders, was a member of one of these com- missions, and says: “We do not know whether the miasma is an inorganic gas, the vapor of organic compounds, or cryptogamic organisms. Nor have we yet learned what the specific conditions are that secure the production of the miasm, nor the means of its distribution. We have some facts and plausible theories on all these points, but no theory that I have heard of which accords with all the facts now known. The malaria abounds in wet and dry places, in valleys, and on mountains. It appears in places where it has before been unknown, without any change of condi- SOME OF THE DRAWBACKS. 77 tion that can be seen. I am convinced that moisture has nothing to do with it, because malaria abounds in the dryest and cleanest parts of the Rocky Mountains.” In addition to the above, the following paragraph, from the Springfield Republican, of a recent date, bears further testimony : “Rev. Dr. Albert K. Potter, for nearly nineteen years pastor of the Second or State-street Baptist Church in this city, has accepted his call to the Dudley-street Baptist Church of Boston, at a sal- ary of $4,000. The chief reason for Dr. Potter’s departure is given in this extract from his letter of resignation: ‘Good friends, it seems sometimes I have grown ten years older in the two years I have dragged about now and then the ball and chain ‘Which the malaria tied to my old vigor. And now, when I am coming back to myself slowly, will not the other scenes, other air, and the rekin- dling of smoldering fires help me to renew and keep something of youth yet awhile, or at least make the next twenty years more hopeful, more fruitful than they could be here? To this question my medical friends answer, yes.” ” yi: A majority of the California physicians, of many years experi- ence, do not indorse the theory of malaria arising from causes other than heat and moisture, combined with vegetable matter. Where irrigation is not practiced, malaria is by no means a prom- inent feature of the locality, although very few sections are entirely free from it during every month of the year. Owing to the great change which takes place in the temperature every day, giving us not only a cool atmosphere at night, but cooling breezes laden with the pure air of the Pacific Ocean, our malarial victims do not usually find much trouble in ridding themselves of the “chills” with very limited doses of quinine. Where they have an intelligent understanding of the causes which produce and foster the malady, and shape their daily habits and surroundings 80 as to better resist its attacks on the system, there is very little need of medicine of any kind. But itis in districts where malaria is most baneful, that the least precaution is taken to keep the system in condition to offer greatest resistance to its inroads. Instead of building their houses on the highest hilltops, Where they would catch the cooling breezes that ward off the disease, they rather invite its approach by locating below the hill, in order to be protected from the north winds of Winter. Then, again, they build one-story houses with the sleeping rooms as near the lower stratum of the miasm as possible. The farmer works out in the hot sun, his wife within doors in a temperature but little lower ; they eat plenty of salt pork and fresh meat, so as to supply more fuel to the already overheated system. Then they.go to bed without a bath, and inhale the air which has been heated all day and does not get cooled off at night by the currents which sweep through a higher altitude. In many instances I have left the scorching hot orchard surrounding the family residence, and, in the middle of the day, by climbing to the top of a neighboring hill, found cool and delightful currents that never touched the 78 ADVANTAGE OF LOCALITY. orchard below. Is it any wonder that some sections of the State have malaria, and at times “have it bad ?” Another drawback, peculiar only to Southern California, is found in the contests for water supply, which are becoming too frequent. The subject is discussed in the succeeding chapter. ee ee eee THE ADVANTAGES OFFERED BY VARIOUS LOCALITIES. HE selection of a location for a future home, in California, is a matter requiring the careful consideration of the immigrant. After visiting various localities, he should be governed in hig choice by the quality of soil, convenience to market and climatic influences of the places which come under his observation. It is not a wise plan to buy a farm or tract of land in any part of the - State simply because some friend advises it, without first visiting several localities and studying the advantages and disadvantages of each. I have known persons who have acted without suffi- cient care and deliberation in the matter of selecting the site for their home, and it has been painfully apparent to all concerned that it has taken them many years to become resigned to the consequences of their hasty action. Neither is it advisable for Eastern people, with families, to dispose of their property and move to this coast without first coming hither to see for them- selves the nature of the country. If several families contemplate a removal to California, they should join together and deputize one of their number to make a preliminary visit. By this method a much more satisfactory result is obtained, with a trifling outlay for each individual. I have in mind at the present mo- ment, the case of an Ohio farmer who sold out his entire property and brought his family out here to locate in the Sacramento Valley, whither his son had preceded him by several years. The son would not go back home to live for the best farm in Ohio, and the poor old father is cursing his lack of good sense for part- ing with his Eastern home, and says “he would not live in this dried up place for the whole State.” By next Spring his views will have modified somewhat, and in the language of the native Californian, “I will gamble ” that he confesses a preference for this side of the mountains, and remains. Another reason for ad- viging a preliminary visit is, that where several families of old acquaintance become interested in the same place, and locate, the feminine members will not feel the loss of dear associates. The fruit sections of the State may be divided into three classes —those in which irrigation is a necessity, those in which it is neither required nor employed, and lastly, those in which it is not absolutely needed, but which have a supply of water at hand ADVANTAGE OF LOCALITY. 79 if desired. The first class includes the Southern California colo- ‘nies, the southern portion of Sacramento Valley and the foothills of the Sierra range. The second class comprises nearly the whole of the Coast Range foothills and valleys, the northwest portion of the Sacramento Valley and the bottom lands on the river banks. The third class covers those sections in which fruit can be raised without irrigation, but which have a supply of water convenient for use, if the fruit-grower thinks the increase in pro- duction by its use will more than equal the cost of utilizing it. This latter variety of soil belongs to the greater part of the Sac- ramento Valley north of San Joaquin County, and to some of the valleys in Southern California. In some portions, as in Yolo County, along Cache Creek, this supply of water is in ditches, but in general, reference is made to an underground supply, which can be raised to the surface by pumps worked by the power of - wind, horse, or steam. There are no irrigating ditches in Sacra- mento or other counties north, except in the foothills, and one or two in Yolo County. Ditch companies, however, are being formed in many of the northern counties, and ere long the dry portions of a section bordering the eastern side of the Coast Range, which receives but a light rainfall, will be supplied with abundant irrigating facilities. The opinion entertained by many Eastern people respecting the “fertility” of the Sacramento Valley, is erroneous. It has been the custom of many newspapers to allude to the Sacra- mento Valley as the great ‘fertile belt,” and, for the most part, it may be so termed ; but there is a great deal of poor land in it as well, and it is no more than right that people coming to this State to settle should not be deceived in its character. Just out- side the corporate limits of this city there is land adjacent to the river, which, I believe, cannot be bought unimproved for less than $300 or $400 an acre. In another direction, and no farther beyond the city limits, land somewhat. improved can be bought from thirty to seventy-five dollars an acre. The first mentioned is protected by a levee, yet is subject to overflow during excep- tionally heavy floods, while the other is high and dry, and wholly out of danger of high water at all times. The key to the differ- ence in price, is found under ground, in the presence of what we here call bed rock ;”—a material somewhat resembling blue clay, and equally as impervious to moisture. Many a Californian, as well as a recent importation, has struck “bed rock” earlier than he expected, in purchasing a tract of land with this sub-stratum near the surface. Although it is thought to be similar in compo- sition to the English marl, and equally as good a fertilizer when mixed with soils, yet its value with us increases with its distance from sight or touch. On a farm of 160 acres, in many instances this bed rock will be found in patches six inches from the surface; in others, from two to four, and six feet, while occasionally a spot of considera- ble area will be found where it is absent altogether, thus making land extremely varied both in character and value. When the rat ita ropremiengesesntrmposiprireioremersimteiorar er HH... 80 ADVANTAGE OF LOCALITY. bed rock underlies the surface at a depth of from two to two and a half feet, the heat of our long Summer extracts the moisture and renders it necessary to use an abundant supply of water to raise fruit on trees or vines whose roots have only two feet of soil to spread in, as it is almost impossible for even the tap-root to penetrate bed rock and receive moisture from below. Where this impervious stratum is four feet or more below the surface, a greater depth of soil and moisture is furnished, and thorough cultivation without irrigation will usually produce, not only good fruit, but plenty of it. Some of our vineyardists claim that four and five foot soils are preferable to those without any bed rock at all, as the former holds the moisture, while the latter loses it by sipage through’ the underlying gravel. My observations do not support this theory. There are thousands of acres in Sacra- mento Valley, and hundreds in Sacramento County, where the bed rock is not more than two and a half feet below the surface. I have talked with the owners of vineyards on such land, and I have yet to find one who claims an average of more than two or two and a half tons of grapes to the acre under irrigation. I also know of vineyards on four and five foot soils where the maximum yield is only five tons, without irrigation, while on the ten foot with underlying gravel, such as is found in N apa Valley and around Woodland, the maximum is often over ten tons. In the latter, the roots hunt for water level, and are not obstructed in the descent. If further proof is wanted of the comparative value of the two kinds of land under discussion, it may be found by reference to the following advertisement now running in a city paper: “We have subdivided a tract of 380 acres, situated three miles southeast of the city, into tracts of 100, forty, sixty and twenty acres. We offer the 100 acre tract, with good dwelling, stable, -outhouses, etc., small orchard, for eighty dollars per acre. The other tracts for from sixty-five to eighty dollars per acre, a por- tion of which has a bearing orchard, and set out to foreign grapevines. The soil upon this land is from four to eight feet deep.” ‘ | The Woodland quality of land, at the same distance from town limits, cannot be bought, unimproved, for much if any less than $100 an acre. I inspected one tract of land two and one half miles from Woodland, which has been lately put on the market, and found nearly two thousand acres of uniform quality, free from adobe, and having a soil of at least ten feet, underlaid with gravel. The whole tract is covered with scattering oaks, so that every purchaser has wood enough for several years to come, if he does not wish to sell it. If he should sell it, the receipts would reduce the price of each acre one half, and in some portions of the tract the returns would be still greater. The owners offer this land at $150 an acre, and deliver water on every lot, if desired. There is no better land in the State, and it is convenient to mar- ket. For a poor man not afraid of work, the oak trees present advantages, but except a few left surrounding the residence, many ADVANTAGE OF LOCALITY. 81 would prefer the land without them, as it is often difficult to make vines grow well where the stumps have been taken out, and it is also troublesome to remove them. This tract has grown wheat for years, and is similar in quality to that of the raisin vineyards in that vicinity. It must not be understood, however, that the two and a half, three, or four-foot soils which abound in the greater portion of Sacramento County, are not valuable. Wine-growers around the Capital City are yearly enlarging their vineyards, even by the purchase of the lighter quality mentioned, as the profits bear a favorable relation to the cost. Our wineries are this year being increased in size, and new ones being erected, the largest one ever built in this section being opened for business this Fall. As these valley lands can often be bought at as low a figure as favorably situated foothill lands, which have to be cleared, our city busi- ness men consider their purchase a good investment for surplus funds, and not a few of the wheat farms are being converted into orchards and vineyards. Many city people have changed their ~ vocation and become fruit-growers in consequence, while others have purchased, and remain in the city. Among those who have bought land, but still pursue their for- mer avocations, is one of our physicians, who bought last year a farm of one hundred and sixty acres of improved land, ten miles - ee from town. = The price paid was $4. - 600. The tract was divided & up into four lots, and fenced. The improve- == ments consis- Bl ted of a poor house and barn, two | windmills, five acres of inferior trees, and ten acres of grapes in full bearing. A majority of the acreage has soil over Lakes in Anderson Valley. four feet in - 240 miles from San Francisco. depth, while but a small portion is less than two feet. This year there have been planted twenty acres of grapes, and ten acres of peaches, apricots and prunes, and the owner will not now take fifty dol- 82 ADVANTAGE OF LOCALITY. ars an acre for the place. Forty acres of it is in pasture. -The past year the hay crop from the portion not in fruit or pasture, brought over $800, and there were twenty tons of grapes, worth $400. | As an illustration of the value of these plain lands, we will sup- pose a quarter-section was bought for $40 an acre, or $6,400. There should be at least one hundred and fifty acres of it which would average two tons of grapes per acre after the third year. We will also add $40 an acre for the cost of cultivation up to the end of the third year—a very liberal estimate for unrooted cut- tings—and we have $12,800 as the cost up to this time. - We cer- tainly should have two tons of grapes for the third and fourth year on every acre of the place. Of course, we would have more, ‘but we will call it two tons. This would give three hundred tons "from one hundred .and fifty acres, which, at $20 per ton, would foot up to $6,000. Deduct $12 an acre for cultivating and pick- ing, the first year, and there is left $4,200 net cash on an invest- ment of $12,800. But it is not safe to always rely on present prices, nor is it necessary that grapes should sell at $20 a ton to bring handsome returns. A farmer on the Cosumnes River, a small stream in the eastern part of this county, this year let a small strip of bottom land to a Canadian for $12 an acre for five years, for hop-growing, and each thinks he has a ‘bargain. The hop-grower had a ton to the acre the first year of planting, and sold it at twenty cents a pound. Having intimated the possibility of a lower price for grapes in years to come, I append a few extracts from a discussion of this subject at the State Viticultural Convention, at San Francisco, on the 1st of September of this year: | ‘“ After a review of the present situation from a wine merchant’s standpoint, the speaker said: ‘How will it be when our produc- tion jumps from ten millions to twenty millions gallons? What must be done to avert the impending crash? Have lower prices and better goods. Even now we dealers have a hard pull against Eastern wines and imported goods. The former, by the artful manner in which the grape-juice is manipulated, can be produced cheaper than we can lay our wine down, and though being an artificial wine, is preferred by many dealers. To com- bat with this vile mixture we must be able to sell our natural wines as cheap as that mixture is sold. Next comes the im- ported article, the heavy fortified wines. These, even, at the in- creased duty of fifty per cent, can be laid down at New York within ten to fifteen per cent as cheap as the domestic article. This is because our Government taxes the domestic producer and discriminates in favor of the foreign. Our market would be de- cidedly increased if our laws were such as to allow us to make port, sherry and other fortified wines at a figure at which we can compete with the imported article. In order to successfully compete in the Eastern markets, he further argued that wine of a good character must be produced for a smaller price. The wine producers were growing richer and should make some concessions.” ADVANTAGE OF LOCALITY. S3 “Mr. Krug pointed out that thé wine merchants had been faulty in not grading the wines and paying more for a good arti- cle. To produce something finer, encouragement must be given.” “Mr. Jacobi thought the wine merchants had given the pro- ducers encouragement, for they bought their wines and the pro- ducers have become rich.” “Charles Kohler pointed out the difficulty of grading. The merchant had to take the vineyardist’s word for it, for he had to wait sometimes twelve months before he could tell what the qual- ity would be. Then the merchants have been groping in the dark and had to work against prejudice and against the Govern- ment tax. Hundreds of thousands of dollars had to be spent in the East in advertising and agents in introducing the wines. Immense progress had been made in the production and con- sumption, and adulteration was almost unknown. At present the profit lies with the grape-grower, who is asking exorbitant prices, and concessions must be made to enable the New York wine merchant to make as much as he can by selling foreign wines.” “Mr. Wetmore said the time was coming when there must be a change of policy. Some encouragement must be given for a better quality of wine and for age. Grapes produced at the rate of ten tons to the acre don’t make good wine, and somebody is going to get swamped unless they look out. The merchants could help the producers by discriminating in prices—giving more for the better article produced from choice grapes, at the rate of two or three tons to the acre.” | Mr. Kohler further remarked: ‘In regard to the increase. in the sale of wines, a few years ago it was said that it was because at that time there were good mature wines on hand, and these being suddenly put on the market, immediately produced a steady demand for the wines of the State. Producers should not be hoggish. They ought not to ask $300 and $400 per acre for grapes, as they have, especially in Napa County, right along. This large price paid the producer makes the prices, by the time - the consumer is reached, so high that other wine is then preferred. A ,wine-grower, if he received $15 per ton, would make about twenty-five per cent more money per acre than the farmers of grain, hay or other products, except in exceptional cases. Wine- makers should endeavor to mature their wines more than they have done. The speaker found it almost impossible to keep his wine, as there was such a constant demand all the time. Moun- tain grapes and wines should and will command a higher price than grapes or wine produced in the valley. Grape-growers on hill-sides, if they will plant the high class of mountain grapes, can easily get $40 per ton, and for wine twenty or twenty-five cents more than valley producers.” “Mr. Denicke, of Fresno, said that vineyardists would make money if they got $15 per ton for Zinfandels.” “Mr. Kohler thought the price too low.” A. Haraszthy, the leading manufacturer of champagne, cau- a er NP De ADVANTAGE OF LOCALITY. tions those who are setting ‘out vineyards not to go too fast. While he thinks the business of wine-growing will never be over- done, or in other words, that there cannot be too many vineyards planted in California, yet they may be planted too fast. While there will be eventually a market for all the wine that can be pro- produced, yet there is danger of producing wine faster than the demand for it. The demand must grow with the growth of the industry. He also thinks there is danger that those who are planting vineyards have their profit figures fixed too high. A person planting a vineyard ought not to expect more than thirty or forty dollars per acre from it when in full bearing. If the expec- tation is for a larger profit, then there is sure to come a time of disappointment.. Upon this subject he says: “We have got enough vines planted already for a considerable length of time. A man who has occupied himself greatly in selling fine cuttings, tells me that he has orders this year for over 2,000,000 cuttings, all of fine varieties; and it is his estimate that there must have been sold from 18,000,000 to 20,000,000 cuttings this year. This is going too fast. I believe there will be a great set back to the vineyardist four or five years hence. The product must, it seems to me, exceed anything that we can reasonably expect in the way of increased demand. I believe that in five years from now that grapes will go down to seven or eight dollars a ton. There will be a great many reasons for embarrassment to the business. The’ production will be so large that it will be difficult to get hands to pick all the grapes in time. There will be a’ lack of wine cellars and casks, unless we begin now to provide them. Material for casks, in consequence of the sudden and excessive demand, will ‘80 away up, and wine away down, and it may for a time come to such a pass that the cask will cost more than the wine it con- tains. It has been so in France, and I fear will be so here. But, at all events, when the wine goes down we can get rid of our sur- plus at low figures by sending it to France. What they want is a wine that will not cost them more than thirty-five cents at Bor- deaux, and any deep-colored, heavy-bodied wine can be sold for that in Bordeaux, for their re-export, after it has been fixed up, or for consumption in France.” x Leaving what we call the “plains” lands—not subject to over- flow—we return to the bottom lands along the Sacramento River below this city, which are protected from the Spring floods by levees, except during unusually severe freshets. This land really has no attraction for Eastern people, as it is rated too high at present. To show some of its possibilities, however, I copy from the record kept by a fruit-grower this year: “From 1,100 early Crawford peach trees, I have sold the present year 9,500 baskets, averaging twenty-three pounds each; and from 800 late Craw- fords, I have 8,300 baskets, making a total of 17,800 baskets, from twelve acres. I sold most of the crop to the Capital Pack- ing Company, of Sacramento, at the rate of forty-seven cents for twenty-five pounds, delivered on the bank of the river, free of boxing. The average for the whole crop will be a little less than . ADVANTAGE OF LOCALITY. 85 forty cents per basket. Last year I got only 5,300 baskets from the same orchard, and I consider the average for the crops of the two years a fair standard for the future. We do not cut down our peach trees here about the time they come into full bearing, as fruit-growers do in the East. Half of my trees are now in the ninth year, and half in the tenth. A purchaser might find a bearing orchard in our section which he could get hold of for $1,000 an acre, but I don’t know of any.” | This river orchard was rented to Chinamen this season, their share of the net proceeds being three tenths. The gross returns were upward of $500 per acre. Northward from Sacramento there is much good land for sev- eral miles back from the river, although a portion of that along the Coast Range has such a light rainfall that at present it is a good locality to keep away from. Adobe, the heaviest of all our soils, and the most disagreeable to work, is found in places clear up to the northern junction of the. two ranges of mountains. The farther northward one goes the colder will he find the Win- ters, and the heavier the rainfall ; neither of which are objection- able in Central California. The frost is fatal to malarial germs, and plenty of moisture always insures good crops. W. P. Cole- man & Co., Sweetzer & Alsip, and Cadwalader & Parsons are real estate agents at Sacramento. The soil of the southern portion of the Sacramento Valley dif- fers materially from that of the northern. In the latter we have fine grained alluvial loams, alternating with extensive streaks of “adobe,” while in the San Joaquin (Wah-keen) Valley the soil is mostly of a sandy character, and frequently very coarse. Besides a difference in soil in the San Joaquin Valley, there is also a dif- ference in the character of the surface of the ground, and the area of the valley is subdivided into upland, or “bench” lands, and’ low, or bottom lands proper. The Stanislaus (Stah-nees- low), Merced and other rivers, after entering the valley, run through smaller valleys of their own, which are in many instan- ces bordered by abrupt bluffs fifty feet high. From these bluffs to the Sierra Nevada the land is frequently dotted with little hil- locks from ten to thirty feet across, and one to three feet high, with only little drainage canals between. This is called “hog- wallow” land, and should be avoided. Nearly two hundred miles south of the Capital is the Fresno Colony, nearly in the center of one vast plain of grayish-white sand, so light that it will sometimes be seen drifting while the cultivator is running through the vines. It is sand, sand, sand, for miles and miles in all directions, and the first man who prac- tically demonstrated the value of such a county as Fresno for fruit-growing purposes, should certainly have a monument erected to his memory. It is no more sterile in its original ap- pearance than the mesa lands of Southern California, but its immense area makes it much less attractive. Taking Fresno City as a central point, various colonies can be found surrounding it in all directions, their number and extent increasing annually. 86 ADVANTAGE. OF LQCALITY. The soil is not usually as deep as the mesa lands referred to, and there is a “hard-pan” formation underlying a great portion of it which has to be punctured, to let the roots go downward to moisture. The land has to be irrigated, but water is found in some places very near the surface. Irrigating ditches are numerous, and although there has been some trouble over the question of riparian rights, yet there seems to be plenty of water at the foun- tain head, which only needs to be conducted to the place where it is. wanted. Everything grows well there, and the average yield of grapes is about four tons to the acre. The Viticultural Officer for that district reports upward of five thousand acres in vines in 1882. Cory and Braly are real estate agents at Fresno. Fresno is very warm in Summer, the mercury rising to 110° at times, and, like some portions of Southern California, is subject to disagreeable sand-storms, when the wind acquires sufficient velocity. At the rate vineyards are being set out, this draw- back will be greatly modified ere long, although it will not entirely disappear, owing to the immense area open to the wind. It has one advantage over any other irrigated section I know of— the land is cheap. Tracts of ten or twenty acres can now be bought near Fresno City for from $20 to $40 per acre for first-class quality. Usually it costs from $10 to $15 an acre to put it in proper condition for irrigating. Crossing the junction of the Coast and Sierra Nevada ranges, the traveler reaches that far-famed “ Southern California,” which for years past has posed as the paradise of this continent, and in many respects it is entitled to the distinction. Whether or not it is the fruit-growers’ paradise, I leave the reader to judge for himself after a careful consideration of its just claims. The first colonies started in several localities about 1870, the famous Riverside settlement having secured the greatest promi- nence, owing to its founding having been chiefly a matter of speculation. About the time mentioned a few individuals from the Western States arrived in that section and purchased a large sheep-pasture at a very low figure, and set to work building ditchbs and laying out the land in plats of five, ten, twenty and forty acres, with the purpose of establishing the model settlement of California. The location is a small valley, .nine hundred feet above the sea, hedged in on all sides by the San Bernardino Mountains, with the Santa Ana River running through it, and the Pacific Ocean about fifty miles to the westward. It was a desolate-looking spot then (as all these mesa lands are), and the stranger passing through it in those days always expressed his sorrow for the “fools” who either expected to raise fruit there, or imagined they could induce people to pay $25 an acre for such barren sandy land, where nothing could be seen but a puny, sickly- looking cactus, after the arrival of the Summer days. The enter- prising men who had the matter in charge, however, went to work with a will, and informed all the doubters that they were going to convert that whole section into orange groves. They tapped the Santa Ana River at the uppermost limits of their purchase, ADVANTAGE OF LOCALITY. 87 dug ditches, built flumes and laid out one street ten miles long and over one hundred feet in width. - Through the center of this street they planted a row of pepper trees, thus converting it into two drive-ways. On each side they also reserved a space for a twenty-foot sidewalk, on either side of which were to be planted a row of palms and magnolias. This was to be the Euclid Ave- nue, and on either side were lots of ten, twenty, or forty acres, which in due time were to be adorned with orange groves and beautiful residences. | Everything being ready, printers’ ink was brought into use and people began to flock in. In the course of time the trees began to bear, and many a settler who had bewailed the day he first set foot in Southern California, now felt that he had his reward for the years of hard work, associated with a very poor living, that he had endured. The Riversiders were happy ; that is, what was left of them, for some had become discouraged and left; but enough remained to congratulate each other over the bright pros- pect ahead, now that the landscape was dotted with “the orange and the green” in mid-Winter. Oranges brought a good price, and the newspapers all through the State proclaimed the fact in tones which could not be misunderstood. To many a Riverside orchardist, however, there was more poetry in orange-growing than real profit, and he still continued to depend on his friends for money. The crop was sold at a good figure, but the expenses ate up all the profits. Even at this period many who were hope- ful when the orchards reached the bearing year, sold out and left in disgust. A few left without selling, and a good many re- mained because they could not sell and hadn't money enough to enable them to get away. The latter, and those who had faith in the enterprise and stood by it, have been rewarded. The com- pletion of the Southern Pacific Railroad gave them a market, and this year the land which could have been bought for $50 an acre in 1876, is now bringing as high as $400 an acre without improve- ments, and from $800 to $1,500 when bearing fruit, in the more desirable localities. - The following article from an Eastern edi- tor visiting that section, will give a correct idea of what ten years has accomplished in a Southern California desert : “Believing that the readers of the Sentinel are interested in Southern California, its people, lands, fruits, and methods of life, we decided to spend a week in one of its best towns, and write out for them what the editor’s eye sees in colony life. For that purpose it is fitting that we select ‘“ RIVERSIDE, The most successful town of its kind in America, and the ‘crack’ colony of Southern California. This place lies in a little valley along the Santa Ana River, hedged in all sides by the San Ber- nardino Mountains, some sixty miles from the Pacific Ocean, and its present settlement is about two miles wide and twelve miles long. This area will be widened and lengthened somewhat as 88 ADVANTAGE OF LOCALITY. soon as more water can obtained. Water, water, water. - Every- where we go in this country we find the universal cry to be for ‘more water’ The company that laid out this settlement have hundreds of acres of land still on their hands, but cannot sell a foot of it until they can provide more water. No rains fall here in sufficient quantities to make agriculture safe, and irrigation is resorted to everywhere. The : “PRICES OF LAND Here are astonishing to a Livingston County man. In Pontiac, we think $75 per acre, the price asked for the Eylar farm, for instance, is a big figure, and far beyond the purse of an ordinary man ; but in this valley, gentle reader, you can buy not a foot of land, with water, for less than $250 to $300 per acre—and this for bare land. Not a stroke of work has been put upon the little ten or twenty-acre tract that is offered to you at that figure. If the land is eligibly located, on the main avenue running down the valley, the bare land will cost you $400 to $450 per acre. If the land has a hedge around it, and is set out in young orange trees, or in grape vines, the price foots up to $600 or $700 per acre. If the orange trees are six to eight years old, and are bearing their first or second crop, the figure asked is $1,000 per acre. If there is a house on the tract the cost of the building is added. “Thus, a good twenty-acre tract, in good bearing, with a $5,000 house, will cost $25,000. It is not customary here for people to own six hundred and forty-acre farms, as George B. Gray does, nor even such a five mindred-acre tract as the Beach Bros. own north of Pontiac. These prices are made possible by the “ PROFITS OF FRUIT CULTURE, Which figures up something startling to a man accustomed to seeing thirty bushels of forty-cent corn raised on an acre. The fruits raised here are the orange, lemon, wine and raisin grapes, apricot, peach, pear, plum, apple, nectarine, lime, fig, and olive, but, as a matter of fact, the orange and the raisin grape are the only two that are raised here for profit. The apricot grows finely, but the price the coming season to be paid by the cannersis only ~ one and one half cents per pound, and this will not yield much profit to the grower. A bearing orange orchard will pro- duce about four hundred oranges to the tree, and one hundred trees to the acre, making a total of forty thousand oranges per acre. These will sell, to the packers in Riverside, at about $10 per thousand, showing an income of $400 per acre. The cost of taking care of this orchard will not exceed $70 per acre, leaving a net profit of $330 per acre, on an investment of $1,000 per acre. The figures I quote are all low. I saw seven hundred oranges picked from one tree, picking most of them myself, and $10 per thousand is the cheapest price at which oranges have been sold for years, that being only one cent each, but I warrant the figures ~ line of graceful pepper trees, their glossy ADVANTAGE OF LOCALITY. 89 I quote to be safe. The culture of the raisin grape is nearly as profitable as the orange. An acre of grapes, four hundred vines to the acre, will produce one hundred and fifty boxes of raisins when four years old. At six years the vineyard ought to produce two hundred and fifty boxes of raisins per acre. Raisins are sell- ingshere at a considerable advance over $1 50 per box, but at that price a good bearing vineyard will produce from $250 to $350, and the cost of taking care of it will be about the same as that of an orange orchard. Apricots will not pay more than half that profit. “Sadly, indeed, do we miss the green grass of Illinois. "I have seen only one little grass plat in all this valley. Tt gets too hot for grass, and grass wants too much water, and water costs money, and the space in which a little patch of grass grows would sup- port an orange tree, and, therefore, in goes the orange tree, and the grass is left out. Every inch of the soil must be watered and harrowed. Even though it may be twenty feet from a tree, or ten feet from a vine, neglect it at your peril. “ LINES OF BEAUTY. “We ride down the magnificent Magnolia Avenue, the pride of Riverside and Arlington. In the center of the wide avenue is a , finely cut leaves waving — — in the fresh ; air like ferns, 8 while the gl scarlet berries peep forth from between 9 the evergreen tleaves and = add beauty to 2 grace. Onthe } sides are rows i of stately eu- Bl calyptus trees f making a growth of twelve to i eighteen feet in a single year. The ee ten and twen- Eo] ty-acre tracts’ : y FEE a= are hedged in Donner Lake, and Tunnels 7 and 8. with the Mon- 245 miles from San Francisco— Alt. 5.939 feet. ter ey cypr es 8, conceded to be the most beautiful hedge in the world. Here and there are planted great palm trees, the trunk shaped like a pine- apple, ten feet in height, and as thick as a barrel, from the top of EE HO RT ea ———— - SC —— 90 "ADVANTAGE OF LOCALITY. which spring the graceful leaves, stems five feet long, and leaves six to eight feet across. Flowers grow with a luxuriance and profusion utterly unknown in the East. Roses grow on trees eight to ten feet high, and have a brilliancy of color and exuberance of growth not known elsewhere outside of a hot-house. Standing back from the avenue are stately residences, occupied entirely by people who have come here from the East to live in this balmy air, in peace and quiet, and engage in the enticing and romantic occupation of orange culture. But you cannot buy any of these little twenty-acre places for less than $20,000 to $35,000; don’t forget that, dear reader. It is a cold fact, and a dampener, after reading about ‘the stately palms and luxuriant roses” Don’t imagine you can sell off your quarter-section out in Rooks Creek or Owengo, and come here to live on the proceeds. But all this loveliness we describe has been produced in less than nine years from bare sand and water. Ten years ago this valley was a des- ert; to-day it is a flower garden. Much money—very much money—has been spent here. Some have lost what they put in : many have gone away bitterly dissappointed, cursing the day they came here; others have remained and worked hard, looking grim disappointment calmly in the face, and then worked harder than ever. To-day these last are living in luxuriance and ease out on Brockton Square or on Magnolia Avenue, while those who suo- cumbed easily will never stop their abuse of California while the sun shines or the rain falls. “In another letter we will attempt to describe this climate and tell you about the sand which we meet here in the air during high winds; about the flies which live here during January as fresh as in July; and about the sea-breeze which makes blankets a neces- sity for comfort every night in the year. “No corn, or wheat. or oats, or grass of any kind, except a little alfalfa clover, is raised in this valley. All is oranges, grapes apricots, and lemons. The past Winter has been a severe one here, and many lemon trees were frozen, and the budded oranges suffered somewhat.” I have given considerable space to Riverside, because it is a representative colony, and shows what can be done south of Los Angeles, where there are many new places inviting settlers. Last year a new colony was opened on the line of the Southern Pacific called Etiwanda. There were 1,500 acres in the tract, and the owners opened a wide street three miles in length, brought water to every lot in cement pipes, and offered the land at $100 an acre. An electric light was placed about the centér of the tract, a hotel built, and, I believe, about 800 acres is now being improved. The land has lately been selling at $125 an acre, water right included. ‘ Near the same locality another tract of 7,000 acres has been purchased and surveyed, and about $200,000 worth of land sold within the year past. It promises to eclipse Riverside in modern improvements. The same individual whose remarks about the ADVANTAGE OF LOCALITY. 91 former place have been quoted, has purchased twenty acres for $4,000, and says of it: “As has been said before in these letters, the great need of Southern California is water; and having obtained this, almost anything is possible. The new town of Ontario is laid out on a beautifully sloping plateau, extending from the railroad depot straight north to the base of the mountains for a distance of more than six miles. Through the center of the tract an avenue 200 feet wide has been laid out, and named ‘Euclid Avenue,” in honor of that beautiful driveway in Cleveland, which it is in- tended to rival. = This avenue rises from 100 to 150 feet through its entire length, and you can stand on any part of it and see every part of it from the railroad tack to the mountain. In the center of this avenue, forty feet apart, will be two rows of fine fan palms; on each side of the palms a driveway sixty-five feet wide, and then a row of Australian fern trees; then walks fifteen feet wide, and inside these will be a row of giant eucalyptus trees. ° It is intended to put up seven electric light poles, one each mile, through the center of the avenue, thus fully lighting the entire tract. The land along this avenue has been laid out into twenty- acre blocks, which are being sold for $200 per acre. The land on the side streets is being sold for $125 an acre. These prices seem high, but it must be remembered that this includes water, for without the water you can buy plenty of fine land at $10 per acre. Ten acres of land here will afford as good a living to a family as 160 acres will in Livingstone County, if as much work is put on it. ‘And in this last clause lies much of the secret of the won- derful production of this land. Every inch of the soil is worked over as carefully as a hot bed is in Illinois, and mother earth yields an abundant harvest only when properly coaxed. A num- ber of fine tracts have already been sold at Ontario, and others are being taken every week.” Southern California is having more of a “boom” than other portions of the State, because men there make a business of buy- ing up these sheep pastures at ten or fifteen dollars an acre, devel- oping the water at the head of some canyon, piping it down to the tract, and offering it for sale (with water rights) at from seventy-five to two hundred dollars an acre. Eastern people— and some Northern California people—are buying tracts there, but they are mostly persons having plenty of ready cash. Many also buy a few acres, set out an orchard, and sell it at a good margin to some business man from the East who wishes to enjoy a life of ease in a mild climate during the remainder of his days. But I fear there is trouble in store for a goodly number of these Southern California orchardists. Year after year the cry of “water, water everywhere, and not a drop to drink!” is becoming more and more an appropriate wail from the fruit-growers of that section. At Riverside they have not enough water for the land already improved, and a Citizens’ Water Company has recently been organized to prevent the sale of more land without the de- velopment of more water, or the better utilization of what there - Se eA ar ee A A — — RA ACN SE ARSE i H x Hl k 1 11 (ES E33 fia 8 SS Sa A A ADVANTAGE OF LOCALITY, is in the ditches. The company which owns the ditches is sery- Ing Injunctions on those above them who are drawing off enough for their own use. The water right with Riverside land allows one inch under a four-inch pressure, for eight acres, for twenty- four hours every thirty days, and is assessed at seven and one half cénts an inch, by the Board of Supervisors, they having the power to fix rates, by a recent Act of the Legislature. One inch to eight acres, for twenty-four hours, is equivalent to seventy-five cubic feet per hour, or one thousand eight hundred cubic feet per day; and if spread over the eight acres, would saturate the whole area for one and eighty-eight hundredths feet. This allowance has been proven to be sufficient for all purposes ; but the truth is, the fruit-grower does not always get it every thirty days, and fre- quently has to wait thirty-five and even forty days. Perhaps, just at this time, the mercury registers above 110° for several successive days, doing much injury to both trees and vines, and causing the owners to exhaust a whole vocabulary of adjectives in denuncia- tion of the ditch owners, who, in turn, clamor for eighteen per cent interest on their investment, or fifteen cents an inch, instead of the seven and one half allowed by the Board of Supervisors, who have the power to fix rates. The ditch company is prose- cuting those above who claim riparian rights ; a citizens’ water company is calling for more water; and the settlers below the colonies are alarmed at the suggestion of submerged dams, which wi also deprive them of the amount which they consider their ue. At Anaheim, nearer Los Angeles, is the oldest, and one of the most successful colonies in the State. It was originally settled mainly by Germans from San Francisco. The original tract of one thousand one hundred and sixty acres was all planted to vines several years ago, when there was plenty of water. More acres were added from time to time, other colonies were opened on ad- Joining land, and of course more water was required. Injunctions were served, and continued lawsuits have been the order of the day for the last few years. Syndicates are being formed in all diréctions. They buy up tracts of land. and then a certain allow- ance of a creek, and announce free water. Then some other com- pany asserts its rights, and a lawsuit is started ; and, unless more water is forthcoming, and less land sold, a good many people who are now going to Southern California are going to be left.” In reference to this matter, the Anaheim Gazette mourns over the coming trouble in the following strain : “The necessity for developing more irrigating water, grows more and more pressing. Every year sees an increased area of cultivated land, with no corresponding increase of the water, without which the land is of but little value. Even at the pres- ent time there is a demand which could barely be supplied were there five times as much water in the Santa Ana River as is now flowing down to the point of diversion. Of the 1,200 inches of water at Bedrock Canyon, 600 inches goes to Orange and Santa Ana and 600 inches to Anaheim and the contiguous country. sary to its prosperity.” ADVANTAGE OF LOCALITY. 93 Either locality could use 3,000 or 4,000 inches to-day and not . waste a drop. It is evident, then, that the country has reached a’ point where something must perforce be done, else not only will further development be arrested, but many of the improvements which represent thé labor of years will be destroyed by the lack of the vitalizing water. . “The wide-awake, keen men of Orange and Santa Ana have long foreseen that something ought to be done to increase the water supply. That country’s predicament is even worse than ours. Not only do they irrigate a much larger territory, but ~ their orange orchards require irrigation just at the time when water is least plentiful. All their plans for an increased water supply have been in the direction of some kind of a dam in the ~ river, and they have secured all the engineering data for such a work. But not only is the undertaking costly, but there must be a clear understanding among the various claimants as to the dis- tribution and ownership of the water after it is developed; and as every claimant corporation is at legal warfare one with the other, there is no present possibility of arriving at that understanding necessary before sthe submerged dam enterprise is entered into. Thus, not only has these miserable lawsuits of the past few years cost a mint of money, but they have indirectly been of greater detriment to the various communities than is represented by the mere loss of the money, because they have prevented that unity of purpose and concert of action which would ere this have prob- ably given the country an abundance of the life-blood so neces- Continuing the subject, the Los Angeles Times throws further light on the matter. It says: “Mr. Jenkins, the Zanjero, informed a T%mes reporter yesterday that the sales of water for the month up to date have amounted to $1,630, and he could easily have sold $3,000 worth had it been in the ditches. Reservoir No.4 has at present only ten days’ water in it, and Reservoir No. 5 twelve days’ water, and at the expiration of that time both reservoirs will be dry. Mr. Jenkins thinks, with the present meager supply in the river, some farmers will have to suffer, but he intends to do his best, and will en- deavor to use the amount on hand to the best advantage. The present scarcity of water is due wholly to our open zanjas, and had we cement ditches or iron pipes the area which couid be irri- gated would be almost indefinitely extended. The city needs these water improvements much more than it needs a city hall or court-house, and a few miles of cement or iren pipe would create as many homes as a dozen manufacturing enterprises. The water question is a most important one and must be studied by our local legislative bodies.and business men, or the growth of the city will soon be checked.” no There is no doubt much water lost by sipage in the open canals, which could be saved by conducting it through cement pipes or canals with cement bottoms, and the proposal to save the water of the underflow of the river by submerged dams and C—O ATS Br a Po Ch VS Ey N55 94 ADVANTAGE OF LOCALITY. caissons, will no doubt increase the supply ; but the man who contemplates settling anywhere in this portion of Southern Cali- ~ fornia, where an artificial supply of moisture is necessary, must face the possibility, if not the probability, of a dearth of water at no distant period. For instance, the average rainfall of River- side is only eight inches, and for the past two years it has been only four and a half. With this light allowance, and only an inch of water on eight acres of deep porous soil once in thirty days, it is no wonder that some Southern California lands have to be flooded occasionally to get the soil moist enough for plow- ing in the Winter months. There are portions of this section of the State, nearer the coast, where water is closer to the surface and can be raised by pumps. There are also sections where raj- sin and wine vineyards are successful without irrigation. Such places are found more particularly in San Diego County, farther south. Smith & Breden, of Riverside, are real estate agents for South- ern Colony lands. SUMMARY. The foothills present a variety of features for consideration, the only one which may be said to be common to all being, beauty of surroundings. The foothills of the Coast Range are very dis- similar from those of the Sierra range, and even those of the Coast Range present different features on the west from what they do on the east side. The valleys of the foothills. also exhibit the same peculiarity, the enclosing mountains on the east side being many times but thinly covered with trees, while on the west every inch is covered with a rank growth of moun- tain trees and shrubs up to the very highest point. To a stranger the different appearance of the east and west side of the Coast Range, is j i it comes to the selection of between it and the ocean ab Taking a stage there, the tourist cross ange past Mount Tamalpais, and en route has an opportunity of noting the different phases presented by different localities. For a mile or two the stage winds through a ravine dotted with beautiful private residences situated on elevated plateaus, and surrounded with native firs and other evergreens peculiar to the Coast Range in Central California. From this upward the road winds through one forest of redwoods, pines, madrona, buckeye, etc., while the ground is covered with a matting of immense ferns and other plants, indicating much moisture. These surroundings continue ADVANTAGE OF LOCALITY. 95 until the backbone of the. range is reached, when 8 in a distance ll of ten rods the whole scene changes. Up and down, the SW vision ranges feo without ob- =a struction. @ The whole gl western side g of the range is seen in beau- tiful undula- tions of green chaparral, and the only trees of any J size which can : "Truckee River. . be noticed, lie © 278 miles from San Francisco—Altitude 5,044 feet. : in seams, as it in the ravines which lead to the ocean, seven miles below, ot Ets seen in the distance if not obscured by the fog. This side of the Coast Range, where fogs are plenty, and where the trade-winds have free scope, is not suitable for fruit growing, although in some of the valleys and ravines some qualities do well. At Bolinas Bay, for instance, an inlet situated eight miles north of the Golden Gate, and well protected from the ocean winds by a high bluff, I have seen an excellent crop of cherries growing ; and I believe that in such sheltered places apricot cul- ture will some time become a prominent feature, as it is known to prosper in some Asiatic countries directly on the coast. The weather being cooler in such localities, it would not be so Hobie to blossom early and get caught by the frost, as is too frequently in some places. a Nore of this range is nearly all adapted to fruit- growing, especially in the valleys which are found all through it, illsides up to an altitude of fifteen hundred feet. Stone 20 ae ih be liable to frost injuries at this elevation, but it is well known that grape culture is here a success. On Howell Mountain, at the head of Napa Valley, and fifteen hundred fee elevation, are farms of near one hundred acres, on which grapes, corn, hay, and potatoes are raised successfully. Nearly t e ho ° range from San Francisco Bay to the Oregon line, offers excellen ~ opportunities for fruit-growing, but at the present time a fair i rerdale, in Sonoma arket is found only as far north as Cloverdale, County and Calistoga, at the head of Napa Valley. Lake County just now presents some very attractive features for the Eastern | [N SE He {| A) || 96 ADVANTAGE OF LOCALITY. man. It is surrounded by mountains, and has a lake in the cen- ter over twenty miles in length, and ten miles wide in some places, and is thirteen hundred feet above the sea—about the same ele- vation as Lake Geneva, in Switzerland. It is expécted that an extension of the railway running through Vaca Valley will reach it by next season. It is now occupied principally by sheep rais- ers, and Summer tourists. As one goes south from the Golden Gate, less frost is encoun- tered, and also less moisture. On the eastern slope of the Santa Cruz Mountains, new orchards and vineyards are increasing rap- idly, the land increasing in value in proportion. In fact, all through this range, as far south as San Luis Obispo, the side-hills are being rapidly grubbed out and put into orchards. Within an area extending as far as fifty miles below San Francisco, can now be found hundreds of lovely homes, made by former business and literary people of the metropolis, within the last three or four years. In most cases these individuals made their selection when out on their holiday vacation, and the profits which some of them now derive from the sale of fruit, far exceeds the annual salary which barely made both ends meet without the exercise of the strictest economy. They are surrounded by beautiful scenery, have plenty of fishing and hunting right at their doors, and are convenient to a good market and a daily mail. Si As evidence of the wisdom of a change of city for country life, in a financial sense, I narrate an instance of a woman's experi- ence here as a fruit-grower. She bought twelve acres of cleared land at Los Gatos, in Santa Clara County, six years ago. Hav- ing given fruit-growing a good deal of atfention for several years, she concluded that fruit which could be canned or dried with the i ight, and which could not be successfully ia, e the least liable to a glut in the market, and would yield good average profits. French prunes, she thought. would fill these requirements, as they neither had to be pitted or peeled for the cannery or dry-house. So she planted the whole place to prunes, and raised corn and other cereals between them for three or four years, to pay expenses. This year she had a magnificent crop, and a cannery-man came along only a few days ago and offered her $350 an acre for the whole lot on the trees, which offer she did not decline. Land in this vicinity is rated at seventy-five to two hundred dollars an acre. There is very little for sale, but the same quality can be found for miles down the range towards San Luis Obispo County, at lower figures. The latter county also offers excellent open- ings for fruit-growing without irrigation, although at the present time it is inconvenient for marketing. Settlers who are looking for homestead lands are finding plenty of it there, acting under the advice of the California Immigration Society of San Fran- cisco. San Diego County presents different features from nearly all of the others. It is the second largest in the State, having an area of 9,580,000 acres, divided into two distinct sections. The ADVANTAGE OF LOCALITY. 97 entire eastern half is 4 part of the great Colorado Desert, in many places being below the sea level, through which the Southern Pacific Railway runs. The. desert portion is bounded on the west by the Coast Range. Between the Coast Range and the ocean, the whole country is cut up into long and narrow val- leys ranging from two to fifteen miles in length. The absence of trees gives it a very barren appearance, but the valleys are very productive. Until within two or three years only a few orchards or vineyards were found anywhere in the county, but the recent maturity of olive and orange orchards, and the shipment last year of excellent raisins from a valley near the coast, has resulted in an influx of settlers at a very rapid rate. The soil is some- what similar to the mesas of San Bernardino County, but in most of the valleys water can be secured twenty-five feet below the surface. There are no better raisins made in the State than in this county, and they are not irrigated. These, together with the fact that it is the best location for consumptives on this coast, has induced speculators to buy up some of the large sheep ranges and throw them open to purchasers. The San Diego Land Com- pany, and the Cajon Valley Land Company of San Diego, have lands for sale on long credits at fifty to one hundred dollars an acre. The Sierra foothills have been described in a previous chapter. They present about the same peculiarities, from Shasta to Te- hachapi Pass, as they do at Newcastle, Auburn and Colfax, on the overland railway. Further south they become more abrupt and do not extend over so great an area. N orthward the soil becomes somewhat heavier, but irrigation is less necessary at the same altitudes, as the rainfall is greater ; southward the soil be- comes lighter. The soil in the vicinity of Auburn is considered the best of the Sierra range, it being better supplied with phos- phoric acid, lime, potash, and a high percentage of humus, quali- ties which are required for the best fruit land in any country. In advising a person where to locate, too many obstacles arise to make that advice valuable. One individual has plenty of en- ergy and ambition, but little ready money ; another has $2,000 or $3,000, and does not wish to go beyond that in the purchase of a place, while a third person, with the same amount, would buy a place on time, using part of the funds for first payment, and reserving the balance for incidental expenses for the first year or two. Then, again, one would like to purchase a small fruit farm already in bearing in the foothills ; his neighbor, per- haps, would prefer to pay cash for a twenty or forty-acre tract of $200 land; and sometimes a third man would like to secure a $15,000 or $20,000 improved vineyard in a locality of some repu- tation for wealth and culture. Such places can all be found: here, and a careful perusal of the preceding pages will tell where they are. For large area of low priced valley land, where a crop is always sure, markets good, convenient to the center of the railway system 98 ADVANTAGE OF LOCALITY. of the State, plenty of south wind in the afternoons and rain enough to raise fruit without irrigation—to secure these favors I would recommend Sacramento. We have a large cannery, several commission houses and wineries, all paying higher rates for fruit, usually, than San Francisco, especially for fruit pur- chased for Eastern markets. ; If a home is desired in a wealthy and thickly settled neighbor- hood convenient to San Francisco, I would re- ? commend Napa Valley, for five miles north and south of St. Helena, and # the Santa Clara Valley { with San Jose as a center. i! The price of valley land | is high here, but the pur- i chaser only buys it once. If he settles in a place ll remote from market and Belt railway facilities, because Et he can get land a little } cheaper, he has to pay Be the difference in install- P ments every time he mar- t kets a load of fruit, and § as long as he lives upon N it. It does not take long pg for the wear and tear of § implements of transpor- tation, and the loss of time, to eat up the fifty #2 or one hundred dollars # an acre saved in a twenty >= acre purchase. The coast foothills are cooler and moister than the Sierra foothills, but there are more cloudy and foggy days. In the Coast Range irrigation is not neces- sary; it is in the Sierras, up to a heighth of 1,500 feet. The soil of the Coast Range is mostly of a white tufa, or volcanic in character, while the other is a red soil, or decomposed granite. Of course it varies in both places, but these are the main characteristics. In the Coast Range, from the first bench upward, one can have ever living trout brooks running past his door; in the Sierras he cannot, until he reaches a much higher altitude. It costs more to buy unimproved land in the former than in the latter, and usually costs more to clear it. I was offered good hill land on the main road from St. Hel- ena to Calistoga, for forty dollars an acre, and there was nearly enough wood on it to pay for clearing. One tract of one acre cene in Yosemite. ADVANTAGE OF LOCALITY. 99 was pointed out where Chinamen put it in condition for plowing for twenty dollars, and one dollar and: a half per cord for cutting up the available trees into stove wood, two lengths to the cord. The owner got nine cords, making thirty-three dollars expense in all. He hauled his wood one mile and a half, to Calistoga, and sold it for thirty-six dollars, leaving him two dollars and a half ahead. It was marketed in the Winter, at a time when there was nothing else to do. This one acre was on a farm of 190 acres, which changed hands last Fall at $9,000. There was a one and a half story house, a small stable, and fifteen acres of grapes in full bearing on the premises; one acre of the grapes, on black bottom land beside a brook, yielded eight tons last year, which gold at thirty-three dollars a ton in Calistoga, but of course the balance would not make so good a showing. Adjoining this place was 160 acres with poor improvements, and only four acres cleared, a trout brook running across it, plenty of redwood for vineyard stakes, and perhaps sixty acres of waste land. Ft was offered at $2,200. The principal growth of these foothills is wine grapes, and there are over sixty wineries in the vicinity to purchase the crop. An enterprise of much importance to the growers, has lately been inaugurated at- St. Helena.” The Napa Valley Wine Company propose buying the wine after it is fermented, mature it, and sell it directly to consumers, thus preventing any adulteration by wine dealers in the east. The dealers in real estate at St. Helena are E. N. Woodward and Z. Shakespear. : A superiority is claimed for the Cosst Range over the Sierra foothills in grape culture. I have visited both, and have a deci- dedly different opinion. They have more trouble with frosts at St. Helena than they have at Newcastle ; there is more mildew on the vines, and I know they do not raise heavier crops. Of course one is irrigated, and the other is not ; but both wine and raisin grapes do well in the latter locality, which is not the case in the former. The “Newcastle Fruit Association,” through its purchases, makes a good market for all kinds of fruit, and its Secretary, Mr. E. M. Culver, is good authority on land matters in this section of the State. For $100 land, where irrigation is unnecessary if the land is properly tilled, and yet the conveniences of it are at hand if required, I would prefer the lands around Woodland, in Yolo County, to any I have seen. The town has a population of 3,000, and there is not a prettier one of its size in the State. The cli- mate is the same as at Sacramento. W. M. Coward deals in Woodland lands. In Southern California there is found a more equable climate than in the central or northern portion. In some parts they have extreme heat and extreme cold, but not so many days of either as we have here. Before I came to the State, I had no idea that it ever got so cold or so hot, south of the Sacramento Valley as it does at Sacramento, but it does; and even after I had become a resident, a Riversider gravely informed me that, down there they Re Ee A EEE 100 ADVANTAGE OF LOCALITY. had no frost, no snow, no heat, no fogs, no « nothing ” which a con- siderate being could call an objectionable feature. I have taken a few lessons since then in Southern California affairs, and I have used their,own publications principally for my text-books, and this _. 18 what I have learned: 88 That at this very same = Riverside the thermom- § cter gets up to 105° at BE | times, for several suc- Bl cessive days; that the | mercury registered 22° | below freezing last Win- | ter, killing nearly all the lime and lemon trees and injuring the orange trees so badly 8 that the owners were (J advised to prune them i and make them more (AF presentable to stran- fi gers; that orange-grow- L | ing has more poetry in € it than money; that = sand storms or malaria #1, are not distinguished by their entire absence; that the water supply of some localities is a A Backlog. very serious matter to many, and, that they never forget a man who offers to improve the latter by, throwing cold water on any of their transactions in real estate or other matters. But with all these objections raised, Justice compels me to admit that the price of land has there advanced $200 an acre since I came to the State, and a general increase of from $50 to $100 an acre is noticed all over that sec- tion. Even on this tenth day of September, 1888, reliable news reaches me, stating that a company of Boston capitalists have just completed the purchase of one thousand acres of the Ontario Col- ony, for a raisin vineyard, paying for the same $150,000, or $150 an acre, for a choice location. When such transactions occur there, even when they are driving piles down into the bed of rivers to catch the underflow, it would really seem as if nothing short of an earthquake will stop progress in that most enterprising portion of our golden State, where the yield of fruit is equal in quality and quantity to the choicest spots on the coast. I know of no better method of gathering a variety of informa- tion about any particular locality, than the perusal of the local paper published there. In it will be found all the important items of interest connected with the location, together with a mention ofthe objectionable features, which seldom see the light in Califor- nia literature published exclusively for Eastern readers. Local ° ADVANTAGE OF LOCALITY. 101 papers are of course prejudiced in favor of the locality where pub- lished, but an intelligent reader can easily distinguish the color line after a six months’ acquaintance with the local and editorial columns. A list of the leading weeklies in the principal fruit- growing sections is appended below : | Record- Union, or Bee, Sacramento ; Mail, Woodland : Star, St. Helena; Expositor, Fresno; Témes, San Bernardino ; Press, Riv- erside; Sum, San Diego; Reporter, Napa; Argus, or Herald, Auburn; and Democrat, Lakeport. Any of these can be had at seventy-five cents for three months, or $1 50 for six months. NOTES. —~Since the preceding chapters were written, the State Fair has been held at Sacramento, and as the exhibit of fruit has sub- stantiated some remarks of the writer in reference to grape-grow- ing in the Sierra Nevada foothills, I have thought it proper to make further comment on this subject. On page 30, allusion is made to the results of a heavy frost in the higher foothills about Colfax, and mention made of the probability of grapes escaping such injuries, owing to the lateness of the buds in developing. The present year seems to have indorsed this theory, for the best ~ ‘assortment of grapes shown at the State Fair this year came from a Colfax vineyard, and, notwithstanding the lateness of the season there—compared with sections lower down—the crop has matured fand been marketed before the appearance of the early Fall rain, which cannot be said for the vineyards of the Sacra- mento Valley, or the valleys of the Coast Range. I now look upon the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Range, at an elevation of 1,500 to 3,000 feet, as a locality where table and wine grapes can be successfully raised without irrigation, if well cultivated. TI also consider it a most desirable locality for settlers, owing to its scenic beauty, freedom from malaria, and the cheapness of the land not remote from the railway. At the present time the market is not satisfactory, but time will soon rectify that. The forty- acre vineyard which was set out last Winter and which has been referred to, has done so well that the proprietors are now clearing another forty acres preparatory to putting in grapes this Winter. The proprietor of the twelve-acre vineyard, which took the county and State prizes this year, has submitted the following figures as the cost of cultivation for the past year : Pruning......... co... $30 00 Sulphuring................. Plowing and cultivating twice Total for twelve acres My own estimate of the expenses of a similar vineyard, in the full-bearing year, was $15°an acre, while Mr. Whitcomb’s is $16. In this instance, theory and practice were not far apart in con- clusions. SR I 3 GR Fh Gi 102 CALIFORNIA FOR CONSUMPTIVES. —In the table referring to “ Some Features of a Witter Climate,” on page 73, the record of temperature from 32° to 50° was taken from the minimum column, while from 50° upwards the figures are from the maximum column of the official report. The num- ber of days above 35° for Sacramento, should be thirteen, in- stead of thirty-nine. —Notwithstanding the warnings of lower prices for grapes in future, the best Zinfandel have been sold at Napa Valley this Fall for $32 50 per ton. The Sacramento market is also $5 per ton higher than last year. : —The writer of this pamphlet is a business man, whose time is fully occupied. He has no personal interest in the subjects dis- cussed, and, while he has no objection to answering any inquiries which the reader may be prompted to make, he trusts that such gratuitous service will not oblige him to furnish his own postage. CALIFORNIA FOR CONSUMPTIVES. (ior IA has long enjoyed the distinction of being a sani- tarium for Eastern consumptives, and persons afflicted with pulmonary disorders of different kinds. Its mild Winter climate, together with the light humidity of the atmosphere during the greater part of the year, justly entitles the State to the reputa- tion it has gained for inhospitality toward a disease which now claims about one out of each four hundred of the population of America. In a limited article on this subject, it is unnecessary to enlarge on the causes of a disease which selects its victims from the ranks of the most cultured, and the most industries of our people. ~ The most diligent student and the most industrious mechanic are equally at its mercy, and, that which both are interested in at the present time, is relief from its decimating influence. It is, perhaps, quite as unnecessary to state that there is not an edu- cated physician on this whole continent who honestly believes that consumption can be cured or subdued by swallowing medi- cines of any kind, but thousands of patients think otherwise. Broadly stated, consumption is a disease of the lungs, produced, in a majority of cases, by the continued inhalation of impure air, and only the application of appropriate lung food through the proper channel will ever effect a cure, or subdue the waste of living tissue so characteristic of this disease. The admin- istration of medicine through the stomach has never been known to cure consumption, either in its incipient or advanced condition. It is virtually a house disease, and the most scien- tific and common sense theories point to out-door remedies for its relief. After years of study by the most noted physicians of CALIFORNIA FOR CONSUMPTIVES. 108 the whole world ; after the publication of hundreds of books treating of this disease; and, after the compounding of medi- cines of the most wonderful curative qualities, it is now generally acknowledged that pure air and out-door exercise furnish the only effectual remedy for consumption: Dr. Oswald, says, in an article on “The Remedies of Nature,” in the Popular Science Monthly: “ With every inspiration the balm of pure air can be brought into contact with the thousand ‘times ten-thousand air cells of the respiratory aparatus, and, as we breathe about twenty times per minute, the panacea can be applied twenty- seven thousand times in twenty-four hours.” It is not necessary, however, to come to California for pure air, for that can be found in abundance everywhere ; but to secure it in a therapeutical condition most acceptable to lungs affected with phthisis-pulmonalis, whether originating from impure inha- lations, exposure or heredity, it seems almost a necessity for patients to reach the Pacific Coast. All over this State, from Shasta to San Diego, can be found living monuments attesting the curative quality of the air surrounding them. They came here with the ominous hacking cough, or perhaps with slight or severe hemorrhages. They came here for relief, and having secured it did not propose running any chances of a recurrence of the disease, and became permanent residents. Many of them were merchants, professional men, clerks and mechanics in the East. Some pursue the same occupations here—but not with closed doors six months of the year—while many of them are fruit-growers, enjoying a life of out-door luxury associated with good health. I have seen and conversed. with many of these “ restored consumptives,” who seem to be thankful for the benefits derived from a residence here, and from personal reasons I know how heartily they will indorse the statement that, in nearly every hamlet, town and city in California, there are one or more mndi- viduals now in the enjoyment of good health, who would have been un their graves years ago had they continued to subject themselves to the harsh conditions of an Eastern climate. For the benefit of those interested in the subject of this chap- ter, I present a few instances which have come under my per- sonal knowledge : | Mrs. B., the wife of a machinist living in one of the factory towns of Massachusetts, was informed by her physician four years ago that she could not live much longer in the harsh Winter climate of the Eastern States. He advised her to go to Califor- nia, which she did. The family came to Sacramento, and the husband secured employment in the railway car works. The invalid wife soon found her strength improving, her cough less debilitating, and her hemorrhages less frequent. She improved so rapidly that a few months after her arrival she opened dress- making rooms, and for three years has scarcely lost a day’s work, having over a dozen sewing girls constantly in her employ. In a recent talk with her she said: “I came to California hoping that I might live until my daughter needed less the care of a mother, 104 CALIFORNIA FOR CONSUMPTIVES. but from the way I feel now, and the amount of work I can stand, I think I am good for several years -of hard work yet. Once in a great while I have a slight hemorrhage, but too slight to cause me any alarm.” | ie Herries of the improvement of Mrs. B., another lady, living in the same vicinity, left her husband and several children, and also came to Sacramento in search of health. Her condition, when she arrived here, was a deplorable one indeed. She was unable ‘to walk, and had to be carried to her boarding house. The cli- mate seemed to confer special favors on her also, for she was able to walk a little in a few days, and in a few months she took daily walks around the city, and actually underwent the painful ope- ration of having several teeth extracted without the use of anges- thetics. Before the expiration of a year, she flattered herself that she wag a cured consumptive, and her husband and children left the East and joined her here. For some reason, unknown to myself, the whole family soon afterward returned to their Eastern home, where the * cured consumptive” was soon laid away in the e. : ® The most remarkable instance of the value of a change of cli- mate, for some diseases, which has come under my personal ob- servation, is that of a former resident of New York State, who had a severe attack of pneumonia at Virginia City, Nevada, where he was interested in the Comstock mines. His physicians said he could not possibly live, and there was no use of a removal to California, or anywhere else. He was told that he would cer- tainly die on the road if he was removed, but he insisted on heing taken there, saying he might as well die in one place as another, and there was a chance in his favor if he survived the journey. He was taken to Auburn, a small foothill town on the Central Pacific Railroad thirty miles east of Sacramento, and was nearly unconscious when he arrived there. A local physician was called, who said there could be nothing done for the man, that he could live only a few hours, anyway; and quite vigorously expressed himself as to the cruelty of taking a patient in such a condition from a warm room in Winter time, and exposing him to the trials of over a hundred miles of railway travel. The patient, however, did not die the next day, nor the next. He was alive at the end of a week, and a slight improvement was noticed. At the expiration of a few weeks he was spending a portion of each day on the verandah of the hotel. Six months after his arrival at Auburn, he had gained sixty pounds in weight, and very cour- teously acted as my guide in a tramp of several hours over the hills and through the ravines of a section made historic by the gold hunters of early days. Last year I had a call from him, and the visit will long be remembered as my first Interview with a man having but one lung. He still lives at Auburn, and is work- ing hard every day in a gravel mine. Mr. R. came to California only a few years since, and opened business in Sacramento. He came to the State to get relief from hemorrhage of the lungs. He obtained it, but his business re- CALIFORNIA FOR :‘CONSUMPTIVES. : 105 quiring him to go East occasionally, he has returned a fow times to the old home, and invariably has a recurrence of the hemor- rhages while there. He made one of these trips the past Sum- mer, which will probably be his last as he nearly died when he was away, and has had more than one hemorrhage since his return. : ~ Mr. P., similarly afflicted, came to Sacramento several years ago, and resided here for a few years. At the end of that time he considered himself cured of all traces of consumption, and thought he could endure the winds and fogs of San Francisco. He moved there, and has resided there ever since without, so far as I can learn, any recurrence of previous troubles. Mr. N.,, a prominent business man from the State of Maine, was obliged last Winter to ponder over the text: “The grave, or California,” as ‘many before him have done. He accepted the interpretation in all seriousness, and arrived at San Diego in April last, on a mattress. He found plenty of congenial sym- pathisers there, for nearly every business man in that vicinity has been similarily afflicted. He improved rapidly, and has become satisfied that San Diego is the only place in which he can live. eady disposed of his interests East, and 1 se at his future Southern California home. e presented, are a few of the many which observation during my three year’s resi- Eastern people of a consumptive diathesis. Although I have given instances where those in a very serious condition have secured relief, yet I do not advise invalids coming here who are in what is termed the “last stages of consumption.” If they do not die en route, they frequently do a short time afterwards from the effects of the journey. The very few, however, that reach the coast, is far outnumbered by our own people who con- ‘tract the disease at home, and on whom a change of climate does not confer such favors as Eastern people experience. Persons who can walk, will not be disappointed “in coming here. They will get a new lease of life, which can be shortened or lengthened by the care which they take of themselves. If they choose to sit around a hotel and lead an indolent life, they will get a short lease, but if they engage in active exercise, they will be surprised at the number of years added to an existence which would have been of short duration under previous surroundings. Were I asked to give advice concerning the best method of securing improved health, I should advise all consumptives to live an out-door life and engage in moderate exercise. In the first place, it brings all the muscles into play and assists nature in applying her own most effectual remedies; and, secondly, it procures recovery with little expense, and sometimes a consid- erable profit to the patient. Previous chapters have shown, beyond a doubt, the profits of fruit-growing here when the busi- ness is conducted intelligently, and how readily the stranger to 3 | 106 CALIFORNIA FOR CONSUMPTIVES. these parts can find a profitable business to engage in. He can locate in any part of the State he chooses, set out a vineyard or orchard and care for it until the bearing year, and sell out if he: wishes at a handsome profit. A good fruit orchard or a good vineyard is better for a family than the best gold mine in the State, as it never “peters” out. The business may be a new one, but the beginner has the advantage of many years of experience which has been very costly to all of our older fruit-growers. But all of the unfortunate individuals who are afflicted with: pulmonary complaints, have not the wherewith to purchase a ten or twenty-acre lot, even in the cheapest localities, and in some instances they have very little cash beyond what would take them to California. They have no capital, and are not strong enough to do a heavy day’s work. There are no beacon lights ahead for them, but I will erect one by publishing a copy of a letter recently sent a consumptive clerk in a postoffice at one of our Eastern cities, who wished to know if $300 would take him to California and back, and pay his expenses during the Winter : ‘“ SACRAMENTO, CAL., September 15, 1883. “ DEAR SIR :—In reference to the inquiries of your letter, I would say, if you made the round trip on an immigrant ticket, and was economical in expenses while on the way, you might find $150 sufficient, and sometimes less would do. The fare from Ogden to San Francisco is always the same, but at present there is some cutting of rates on some of the Eastern connections, which has somewhat reduced the tariff. A young man recently secured a ticket from San Francisco to Philadelphia for $52 50, a saving of $15 over the usual rate. Ordinary board can be secured here for $4 a week, without room ; with room, from $20 to $25 per month. At these figures, $300 would take you to California and back, and board you for five months in this city. “You ask if you could not secure some light employment to assist in paying your expenses during the Winter. I presume you might find some openings of this kind, if you accepted any- thing which offered, and you were able to perform the labors required, but usually there are more applications for positions, however, than there are positions to fill. If you chose to go into the country you could get all the work you required and get well paid for your services. “If your health is in such a condition as to compel you to seek a warmer climate, I think you are proposing a very unwise move. Evidently your life is at stake, and it would seem proper to make more of a sacrafice to save it than a temporary absence from. all cherished associations. If you should find relief by a Winter’s residence on this coast, you should stay here by all means. One, two, or a dozen Winters spent in California will not cure consumptives, if they are followed by a residence in an Eastern climate. That has often been tried, and as often failed. “This is what I would do if I was situated as you are. I would imitate the life of many a California miner, or some portions of it. I would select a plat of five or ten acres up in the foot- CALIFORNIA FOR CONSUMPTIVES. 107 hills, near a good market for fruit and convenient to a postoffice. If I could not buy it, I would rent it for a term of years with the privilege of purchase. I would select a spot among the firs and oaks, where I could look up at the mountains and down at the ravines. Here I would build a single board cabin of two rooms, and furnith it with a bed, a stove and a few necessary incidentals, at a total expense of a little over $50. Buy a few provisions and go to keeping house, and if you are at all ingenious I will guar- antée a year’s living at less than a $100 outlay, and you will come out at the end a new man, capable of doing a hard day’s work with ease. = ; “You may laugh at the idea, and say it can’t be done. I know it is being done. During my Fall tramps in the mountains I have frequently met with such instances, and I only wish you could see the meal I often sit down to, prepared by some jolly old miner in his little eight-by-ten cabin beside the sparkling, clear waters of the California mountain rivers. ~ “Having built your house, commence preparing the ground for an orchard or vineyard. You can learn from your neighbors what to do, and how to do it. - It will be new work to you, and you will soon tire; take a rest, and tackle it again, and you will soon learn that your tired spells are becoming less frequent. Don’t overwork yourself, for you must remember that you are not trying to get rich in cash, just now but rich in health, which is of far more value to us all. | “If it is necessary, and you can afford it, hire enough help to get an acre or two ready for planting, in time for Spring. But before this, purchase two or three thousand grape cuttings, and set them in the ground for rooting; also, plant four or five hun- dred peach pits. When Spring arrives put in the prepared ground to strawberries and blackberries, and vegetables for home use. Attend to your little farm this year, and ‘work out’ what time you can spare and your health will allow. If it is too hot in the middle of the day, go home to your own ‘vine and fig tree,’ and take a sleep, as all people should in very hot weather. “When Winter comes around, you will have learned many things in fruit-growing, and will know how to utilize your rooted grape cuttings, and how to bud your peach sprouts. The next season you can spend your time on your own place, and will be surprised at the income you will get from your berries. Put out your grape cuttings and your peach trees in whatever land you have prepared. You are now a California fruit-grower in the incipient stage, and will know more about the business than I could tell you in a week. By this time you will have every inch of your plat in fruit, and three years hence you may reasonably expect a clear profit from it, greater than your present year’s sal- ary, from which you save so little. Your land will be worth from $400 to $500 an acre, and if you wish to engage in other business, you now have the capital and the health to start with. If you come out here for the benefit of your diseased lungs, come to stay and work, and you will never regret it.” The most noted resorts for consumptives are Auburn, Placer 108 CALIFORNIA FOR CONSUMPTIVES. County ; Sierra Madre Villa, Los Angeles County ; and San Diego, in San Diego County. ' The first named is in the Sierra Nevada Sierra Madre Villa, San Gabriel. A Southern California resort for consumptives. Up in the mountains amidst orange groves foothills, at an elevation of 1,500 feet; the second is at -the base of a range of mountains on one of the elevated plateaus of Southern California, and the third is situated directly on the coast. Auburn is delightfully situated, being surrounded with mountains covered with firs and oaks, and is largely patronized by San Francisco invalids. The leading hotel is the Putnam House. Sierra Madre Villa, at San Gabriel, is a hotel itself, sur- rounded with orange trees and vineyards. San Diego affords good fishing, and for a coast town is comparatively free from fogs and winds. The country around San Diego presents a very barren and uninviting appearance, the hills being entirely bare of trees of any kind excepting low bushes or chapparel. It is the most uninviting of the three, but for evenness of temperature it is superior to all of them. The Horton House is the leading hotel. For a Winter residence any of them are pleasant, but for Summer, San Diego is preferable, owing to the proximity of the cooling breezes from the ocean. Santa Barbara is also a promi- nent resort for consumptives, and perhaps more largely patron- ized by Eastern invalids than any of the others, in past years. The Arlington, is the leading hotel. With the exception of Sierra Madre Villa, there are plenty of favorite boarding houses at all of the places mentioned. Sacramento is well represented by the Golden Eagle hotel, and, as has been shown, possesses a climate of much value to Eastern consumptives. Being centrally located it affords easy and inexpensive trips to San Francisco and the coast in one direction, and the foothills in the other; the fare being only $1 50 to each. Being also in the heart of the fruit, vine and vegetable industry, board is. considerably cheaper than at any of the other localities mentioned as being peculiarly suit- able for people afflicted with pulmonary disorders. 25 I — . —— — TERE : 4 Sis d aid § lls 28 =I —_— —_— _ = 14 — NBS 1010a ANSI/ISO #2 EQUIVALENT 125 | RI — I ——— ——— m Oo cc = > a Oo O Oo oc Q = Q XI I oc Oo oO —- Oo I a a x x ™ Yr = a. ' END OF TITLE |