206 TRANSACTIONS OP THE 



FRENCH PRUNES IN CALIFORNIA. 



By Hon. Jos. Eoutier, of Routier's Station, Saceamknto County. 



DRYING THE FRENCH PRUNE, OR PETITE PRUNE D'ORGEN. EXTRAORDINARY 

 PROFIT OF THAT INDUSTRY IN CALIFORNIA, PARTICULARLY IN SACRA- 

 MENTO COUNTY AND COUNTIES SURROUNDING. 



California is certainly the paradise of the fruitgrower. A fortune 

 can be made in ten years from a fruit ranch of eighty acres, or even 

 of forty acres, mostly by anybody blessed with that amount of good 

 land. Now I will demonstrate how any enterprising man, with a 

 very limited capital, can also make himself and family very comfort- 

 able and even rich with ten acres of bottom land, if planted in French 

 Prunes, or Petite Prunes d'Orgen, which is the same thing. 



The trees must be grafted or budded on plum stock, and be one or 

 two years old — I prefer one year old trees. They must be planted 

 about twenty-one feet apart, so it will take one hundred trees per 

 acre. Good trees ought to be had for twenty cents apiece, or by the 

 thousand for fifteen cents. The holes must be dug from two to three 

 feet square, according to quality of the soil. 



The fourth season after planting, and even the third if j'our trees 

 have been well taken care of, you will obtain about ten pounds of 

 prunes to each tree, enough to initiate yourself to the drying business. 

 The fifth year you will get about sixty pounds to each tree. The 

 sixth year one hundred and twenty pounds or more, to the tree. 

 After that your trees are in full bearing, producing according to loca- 

 tion and care, from one hundred and hfty to three hundred pounds 

 to the tree. 



TJie only trouble now is the drying of the prunes in a satisfactory 

 manner, without spending thousands of dollars in building driers. 

 Driers are a necessity in Oregon, or any other wet country, but here 

 in California we can dry the French prunes to perfection without 

 driers; sometimes in one week, and more generally in two weeks, in 

 following the following instructions. 



Do not pick the prunes by hand, as they do not ripen all at the 

 same time, but in about three weeks. Begin to shake your trees 

 towards the twentieth of August, then every week after, and on the 

 fourth time pick them clean. 



Now for drying. The only apparatus needed is an iron kettle 

 holding from twenty-five to fifty gallons of water. To each twenty 

 gallons of water add one pound of the best American concentrated 

 lye; have the water boiling, then take a wire basket of some kind, the 

 home-made one will do best, put twenty pounds of green prunes in 

 your basket, dip them in the boiling kettle, let them remain in there 

 about one minute, till you perceive that the skin of your prunes are 

 cracked all over, then take them out and lay them on a tray, and in one 



