448 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



the past with the eulogiums upon the foothills, but there has so far 

 been but little system pursued in the planting of the proper kind of 

 fruits. 



The time has passed for haphazard planting. Given the right soil 

 and the proper fruit adapted to soil and climate, and an independ- 

 ence must be the fortune of the possessor. As a fruiterer said to a 

 friend of mine: "The man who will plant a good keeping apple in 

 the foothills, on line of railroad, will have a bonanza." You must 

 look beyond the market of the State. There are fifty million people 

 who will eat our fruit, in the United States, if we can get it to them 

 cheaply. They will buy our pears, apricots, plums, and grapes, 

 because they cannot in open air or hothouse raise those fruits. We 

 have a complete monopoly of these four fruits. At present the tariff 

 on a carload of fruit from Sacramento to the East is from $500 to $900, 

 and many persons are exclaiming that the fruit business will be over- 

 done. My impression is that it has not begun. 



I am told that the market now is about equal to the demand, and 

 that forty per cent of the trees planted are not in bearing. In three or 

 four years we shall have more fruit than the home market demands, 

 and more than the dealers will buy. At that point is our opportu- 

 nity. The railroad company will carry out its own doctrine, that the 

 ''service is what the traffic will bear." It will be a good doctrine for 

 us then. The traffic will bear, probably $300 per carload, and that sum 

 in a few years must be the tariff. The railroad companies are not 

 going to see the fruit wanting a market, and must, out of self interest, 

 come to our rescue. 



The valley will probably excel us in the quantity of pears and 

 plums raised per acre, but if they should excel us in the quantity of 

 grapes and apricots, we are more than compensated by the superiority 

 of our fruit. ■ 



Can the wine business be overdone? Not while you and I live, 

 provided we make a cheap, and, as Mr. Wetmore says, a "potable and 

 transportable wine." I am able, from the reports of the Assessors to 

 the State Board of Equalization, to state the number of acres devoted 

 to wine culture in the State. Of course these tables are somewhat 

 faulty, and perhaps understate the truth, as, for instance. Placer 

 is stated not to have produced any raisins, when there is a raisin 

 vineyard of two hundred acres within a few miles of Rocklin. 



There were planted at the close of 1883, of table grapes, fifteen 

 thousand four hundred and forty-six acres; of wine grapes, sixty-five 

 thousand seven hundred and two acres; of raisin grapes, five thousand 

 nine hundred and seven acres, making a total of eighty-seven thou- 

 sand and fifty-five acres. The estimate is exclusive of Los Angeles, 

 whose Assessor failed to report. I suppose the true estimate is one 

 hundred thousand acres. Estimating that in time there will be one 

 hundred thousand acres devoted to wine, and the product, at the rate 

 of five hundred gallons per acre, California's yield will be fifty mill- 

 ion gallons. This seems immense, but compare this with France 

 alone, which produces two thousand million gallons. Cheap good 

 wine will make its own market, and the taste for it will increase as 

 good morals increase, and people become refined and temperate. 



You have along the line of the railroad an advantage over the 

 present vine-growing counties. You are one day nearer the eastern 

 markets. For green fruits this one day in value can hardly be over 

 estimated. One acre in the foothills is worth two of the lower valleys 



