STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 203 



then have a new base line for the triangle. Continue as before and you will 

 have the stakes equidistant, and the rows will be perfectly straight, A sec- 

 ond device, to preserve these stakes when you come to plant and are obliged 

 to dig them up to make holes for your trees, is this: Take a board four 

 inches wide and four feet long, and cut a notch on the side at each end 

 and cut a notch in the center. When you dig your hole first lay this board 

 down with the stake where your tree is to go in the middle notch; then pull 

 up the stake and put it in one of the end notches and another small peg 

 in the other. The hole may then be dug, but don't disturb these outside 

 stakes. When you get ready to plant, set your tree in, and put your board 

 back on the pegs and let the tree trunk rest in the center notch. The 

 board will help to steady it, and when set the tree will be in the exact spot 

 where your stake stood before the hole was dug. I have found this sim- 

 ple contrivance avoids all the trouble and difficulty of getting the trees 

 straight after the peg is dug out. 



Don't stop at the expense of a little money and trouble to have your 

 orchard symmetrical and neat in appearance. Perfect alignment of trees 

 will always give a pleasurable sensation to the beholder, and will facilitate 

 cultivation. 



WHAT TO PLANT. 



In all the desirable fruit regions of this State there will be found grow- 

 ing almost every variety of fruits. In some cases this is on an extensive 

 scale, in others quite large, and in others small, but more or less trees of 

 nearly all varieties will be found advanced to fruitage. No one need be 

 misled as to what fruit is adapted to a particular locality if he will take 

 the trouble to inquire and faithfully note down the result of his informa- 

 tion. So that when fruit growers tell you to plant that which is adapted 

 to the soil and climate of the locality, they tell you what is important and 

 what it is within your power to learn. This caution cannot be too deeply 

 impressed on your mind. For instance, along the seacoast and within 

 the influence of the trade winds, or in the more moist atmosphere there 

 prevailing, you will be more successful with some fruits than in the hot 

 valleys of the interior, and vice versa, but you can readily learn these 

 differences in advance by inquiry. 



If you have a particular fancy to engage in any particular fruit, find 

 where it does well, or best, and there make your home. If you should 

 desire to engage generally in profitable kinds of fruit, without preference 

 as to locality, you cannot go amiss; only, when you come to plant, be 

 guided by what you see, and don't strike out on untried lines; do your 

 experimenting when you have an income and can afford it. I would sug- 

 gest that you select for a home the place, all things considered, that seems 

 to meet your social wants, or that will soon do so, and unless it is immedi- 

 ately on the seacoast or high in the mountains you will find the place 

 suitable for profitable fruit culture of some, indeed, of nearly all of the 

 many varieties adapted to our climate, almost anywhere in the State. 



NO SPECIAL KNOWLEDGE REQUIRED. 



One of the most successful fruit growers in California told me the secret 

 of his success, he believed, lay in the fact that he began without knowing 

 anything about the business. What he meant was that he didn't have to 

 unlearn what most men must who come from the East. The planter must, 

 however, not suppose that " ignorance is bliss " in fruit growing. Our 

 pioneer fruit growers have developed a system at once unique and yet 



