BTATE AGRICULTURAL B0CIETY. 191 



thought thai occurred to him in occupying his new home, as a transplanted 

 inhabitant, was: "Will the products I have been accustomed to at home 

 grow here?" He made the experiment, and found the answer to be in 

 the affirmative. But the wheat-raisers of Butte and Colusa came from 

 countries where wheat and corn, cattle and hogs, were the chief objects of 

 agricultural industry. On the other hand, then' w;is a large infusion of 

 southern European element in the early settlement of southern California. 

 Their habits and natures led them early to engage in the citrus fruit indus- 

 try, and to establish the adaptability of that portion of the State for the 

 production of those fruits. Besides, the early American settlers of south- 

 ern California did not have to await the result of experiment to demon- 

 strate that citrus fruits would grow and mature in that part of the State. 

 The Jesuit Fathers had planted the olive and the orange at the old Mis- 

 sions in southern California long before the advent of the American people 

 to this coast. Considering, therefore, all these conditions, our greatest 

 wonder is that the development of the citrus fruit industry in the southern 

 counties is not further advanced than it is, and that to-day their exports 

 are not greater than we find them. Northern California contained no Mis- 

 sion, and no growing orange tree, on the advent of American immigration. 

 It contained mines, rich and numerous, and to them and their develop- 

 ment all minds were directed. Even when the best surface diggings began 

 to be worked out, and a portion of our population turned their attention to 

 agriculture and horticulture, our more northern latitude, in the absence of 

 such observations as were calculated to demonstrate the character and 

 temperature of that latitude, served as a discouragement to any extended 

 experiments in the production of citrus fruits. It was not until the few 

 oranges planted from the seed — more out of curiosity than anything else — 

 began to send up strong shoots, and develop into vigorous trees, that we 

 become interested in this subject sufficiently to begin to investigate it. 

 Rev. N. R. Peck, of Ophir, tells me that in 1862 he carried a fine orange 

 home in his pocket from Sacramento. On reaching his family it was 

 divided and eaten, and, just to see what it would do, he planted a seed 

 in a little loose soil near the front doorstep. Months afterward, when he 

 had almost forgotten about it, he noticed one day that the seed had ptit up 

 a little tree some four or five inches high. He was surprised and pleased, 

 and at once became interested in the little waif, so to speak. He cared for 

 it, transplanted it, and it grew and prospered beyond his most sanguine 

 hopes. From that tree, as nearly as I can learn, were picked the first ripe 

 oranges ever raised in Placer County. It is a mammoth beauty to-day. 

 Some of its fruit, I believe, is here on exhibition. For seven or eight years 

 its average yield has been at least one thousand oranges per annum. 

 What was done by the Rev. Mr. Peck was done by others in northern Cali- 

 fornia. When trees thus planted began to bear fruit, and fruit, too, of the 

 brightest golden color and finest flavor, the reasoning mind would natu- 

 rally say: "If one tree will grow and do well, so will one hundred;" and, 

 prompted by this thought, others have planted, until to-day the orange can 

 be seen growing and thriving in nearly all portions of northern California. 

 In Solano, at Vacaville, Vallejo, Winters, and all through the foothill por- 

 tion of that county, we find the orange and other citrus fruits. In Yolo, at 

 Washington, and up and down the Sacramento from that place, growing 

 citrus fruits are not rare. At Woodland, Knight's Landing, Davisville, 

 and in the Yolo foothills, they grow to perfection. In Colusa, at Orland, 

 St. John's, Colusa, Princeton, and all along the Sacramento in that county, 

 as well as in the foothills of the Coast Range, are to be found the orange 



