STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 207 



20 per cent more if they had been handled properly, and yet they brought 

 from 7 to 12 cents. 



Don't raise fruit unless you will take care of it. Plant of freestones the 

 Muir, late and early Crawford, Susquehanna, Wager, and Solway. The 

 Susquehanna and Solway for canning are probably the two best; for dry- 

 ing, the Muir. For canning, avoid a peach with much red at the pit, and 

 for drying, get a peach with small pit, fine meated, and not over juicy. 

 The clingstone has its advocates. As a rule it is sweeter than the freestone 

 and firmer meated, and modern tools for pitting make it almost as easy to 

 prepare as the freestone. W. W. Smith, of Vacaville, thinks the cling will 

 some day be the canning peach, and he is Ijigh authority. The Orange 

 Cling and the Tippecanoe, for yellow clings, are good enough; the Heath, 

 for white. 



Apricots are to my mind among our most valuable fruits. They are not 

 grown out of California in the United States to affect the market, and to 

 no great extent elsewhere in other countries. As canned fruit they are 

 eagerly bought as fast as their merits become known, and they sell better 

 dried than peaches. They are healthful, delightful to the taste, and are 

 about the only fruit that retains its flavor, and is as good canned as fresh 

 from the tree. Only in late years have our people heard of them, much less 

 tasted them, and to thousands of people in the East they are yet unknown. 



The market is almost exclusively for dried and canned, mainly the lat- 

 ter. They ripen rapidly, and growers must be prepared to take care of 

 them. The canners will come and get them if there are enough to warrant 

 it, but when we bring our trees into bearing we must have canning houses 

 near home and be prepared to take care of our own fruit. The apricot is 

 a vigorous grower, a liberal bearer, and yields large returns to the owner. 

 The varieties planted heretofore have been Moorpark, Peach, and Royal, 

 but some other valuable kinds are now in the market, among them Blen- 

 heim and Montgamet. The apricot bears about as soon as the peach. 



The prune does not make the vigorous and rapid growth at first that the 

 apricot does, but makes a fine tree and ultimately bears abundantly. No 

 more healthful or toothsome dried fruit is to be found than the prune. We 

 have foreign competition, mainly in France, but none on this continent. 

 Civilized man has known the French prune for centuries, but the price 

 has never allowed the fruit to be universally used. There are large profits 

 in prunes at prices that would make it possible for all classes to use them 

 freely, and such use will create an enormous demand. We have not, in 

 the upper Sacramento Valley, yet shown the adaptability of our climate 

 for the prune as we have the peach and apricot, but south of us, in our 

 valley, and in the San Joaquin, they do well, and all the conditions seem 

 to be present here for their successful growth. On the " Star Ranch " of 

 Mr. Duncan, near Red Bluff, some fine specimens of prunes and plums are 

 shown. 



We speak of prunes and plums apart from each other. All prunes are 

 plums and generally speaking the conditions for successful growth must 

 be the same. 



For drying, the French prune is the favorite. A great deal of learning 

 has been expended to determine whether we have the true French prune, 

 and nothing seems yet certainly known as to the identity of our prune 

 with the prune of commerce in France. We know, however, that our 

 prunes sell well, are profitable, and are making their way against the 

 imported article. The Hungarian is large, productive, and profitable; is 

 bright red, juicy, sweet, a strong grower, a good bearer, and parts from the 

 stone; while the French prune is medium size, oblong, reddish-purple, rich 



