STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 239 



properly preparing them for market. Nearly all the various raisin sec- 

 tions of California can produce and do produce excellent raisins, and there 

 arc many as yet undeveloped sections which can produce raisins equal to 

 any yet turned out. As a general proposition, it will pay all producers of 

 raisins to sell their fruit in the sweat-boxes to some regular and reliable 

 packer, who will maintain standard grades, from their own section of the 

 country. The policy now in vogue to some extent of small producers from 

 every raisin section packing on their own account, only produces irregular 

 and uneven grades, and is not calculated to lead to any permanent benefit 

 to the California raisin industry. Producers should not be packers or spec- 

 ulators, as it will fail them, in net results, nineteen times out of twenty. 

 The best way is to sell their raisins in sweat-boxes, as before stated, to reg- 

 ular packers. We can repeat our suggestions of last year, that some dif- 

 ferent branding should be used for California raisins. As it is now we are 

 simply imitating the Spanish brands, but, in our opinion, something dis- 

 tinctly Californian should be used. 



The trade for California raisins of good brands throughout the United 

 States has never been as good as this year, and at fair prices. They have 

 been introduced into markets where they have never before been known, 

 and it is now only a question of time, when, with care in packing and 

 grading, we will entirely drive the imported raisins from America. 



California French Prunes. — We place the total output this year at 2,000,- 

 000 pounds. The low prices ruling last year for the California French 

 prunes so stimulated the demand in eastern markets for this really choice 

 fruit, that the entire product of this year has principally been marketed 

 and at higher figures generally than last season. 



In this there should be no surprise, as the California French prune is a 

 different article from the imported French prune. Our prunes, as every 

 consumer knows, are more like dates, and when cooked are of a most 

 delicious flavor. Besides this, dealers have found out that the California 

 prune keeps better and longer without sugaring than the imported goods. 

 For many years our suggestion, repeated season by season, to grade our 

 prunes, has been finally adopted, and the bulk of the California prunes 

 this year have been graded according to size as nearly as possible. 



Next year we anticipate that improved machinery will be adopted, 

 which will grade the prunes as close as the French goods. 



Prices this year have ruled all the way from six cents to ten cents per 

 pound, according to grades. The bulk, however, of the fruit has run in 

 size from 70 to 110 or thereabouts, the proportion of the larger fruit being 

 very light. 



The prune industry of California is One that is constantly increasing, 

 and which promises great development. We have the United States for a 

 market, and it is not possible to overdo such a market as that for a very 

 long time to come. Our best prunes so far come from the Santa Clara 

 Valley, though other sections, like Sacramento and Sonoma Counties, are 

 turning out some very nice fruit. 



California German Prunes. — The output of this fruit is as yet compara- 

 tively small, as the French prunes raised in California are so much supe- 

 rior that there has been little call as yet for the German prunes. There is, 

 however, any quantity of land suitable for the growing of this fruit profit- 

 ably. With a large number of our German people these prunes are pre- 

 ferred, as they have more of the taste of the fatherland. 



A number of new orchards are coming into bearing, and we expect a 



