184 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



FRUIT GROWING IN CALIFORNIA. 



Written by Dr. H. Latham, Secretary Upper California Immigration 'Association, 



Sacramento, California. 



A thorough knowledge of the present and future of fruit growing in this 

 State involves a study of our climate. 



Climatic influences the world over are both astronomical and geographi- 

 cal. As the former are much the same on corresponding lines of latitude, 

 I shall only speak of the latter. The area of California is composed of 

 two long parallel lines of mountains, the Coast Range and the Sierra 

 Nevadas; the longitudinal valleys of the Sacramento and the San Joaquin, 

 lying near the sea level; and the transverse valleys of the foothills and 

 mountains. The Sierras are continuous with the mountain chain that 

 rises abruptly in the peninsula of Alaska, and running southeast for two 

 hundred miles, gradually bends to the south, and continues, through Brit- 

 ish Columbia, Washington Territory, Oregon, and California, to Mexico. 



The features of this mountain chain, its continuous high elevation and 

 direction, exert a wonderfully modifying influence upon the climate of this 

 State. Its starting from Behring Straits, and running so much east of 

 south for such a distance, protects the whole of the country west of it from 

 the fierce winds from the great Arctic ice fields that sweep all the country 

 east of the Sierras with such terrible force. A glance at any map of North 

 America will show that it is impossible for any of the icy blasts from the 

 Arctic regions to reach California. This is one of the great geographical 

 factors in modifying the climate of this State. Another powerful geo- 

 graphical factor in making our climate incomparably milder than it is on 

 corresponding latitudes on this continent, is the great ocean current of 

 thermal waters, which rises on the equator under a torrid sun, and sweeps 

 north and around the great circle of the earth and washes our shores. By 

 reason of the conformation of this great mountain chain, as described 

 above, the warm winds from the heated ocean current are the only winds 

 that can reach the Pacific Slope west of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. 

 The entire absence of the cold Arctic winds, and the continuous presence 

 of the tempered winds from the warm ocean currents, result in giving this 

 State, through its whole length, a climate favorable for all the products of 

 the temperate and semi-tropic zones, a climatic condition found in Cal- 

 ifornia only, of all the United States. It was in such a climate that the 

 first experiments in fruit-raising in this State were made more than two 

 centuries ago. 



The first European occupants of this coast — the Spaniards in the six- 

 teenth and seventeenth centuries — planted and raised all the deciduous 

 and citrus fruits at the " missions " which they founded. These experi- 

 ments extended from San Diego on the south to Sonoma on the north. 



In the upper portion of the State, fruit growing was not attempted till 

 after the American occupation of 1849. The Europeans who were in that 

 part of the State were few in number, and were engaged wholly and exclu- 

 sively in grazing. 



The discovery of gold and the rush of gold hunters resulted in the peo- 

 pling and settling of every portion of the State. The mining era stimu- 



