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success and profits. Compared with other fruits, the trees are slow in 

 coming into bearing; but when once grown, they live and bear to a 

 great age. The oranges, lemons and limes produced in Los Angeles are 

 mostly natural fruit, and the trees bear at about seven years of age. At 

 ten years they bear on an average, about one thousand five hundred 

 specimens of fruit each. They are worth, in the orchards, from two to 

 three dollars a hundred. About one hundred trees are generally planted 

 on an acre of land. By this statement it will be seen that the product 

 of an acre of land planted with oranges or lemons is about four thousand 

 five hundred dollars a year. 



It would probably take California fifty years to supply the demand for 

 our own and the Atlantic States, and the States constantly coming into 

 existence in the interior of the country, if her fruit growers were all to 

 enter into the business with energy. The subject is worthy the consid- 

 eration of our people. 



BERRIES. 



The cultivation of the different varieties of small fruits is being eno-acred 

 in, in some portions of the State, very extensively, and with satisfactory 

 results. It is estimated that the product of the different varieties for 

 this year is as follows : Strawberries, one thousand tons; blackberries, 

 two hundred and ten tons; raspberries, one hundred and sixty tons; 

 currants, two hundred tons. The average price of strawberries and 

 blackberries has been about ten cents per pound to the producer ; that 

 of raspberries and currants, about thirteen cents. At these rates, the 

 value of the product of the State has been about three hundred and 

 thirty-five thousand five hundred dollars. Alameda and Santa Clara 

 Counties are by far the largest producers of these berries, and 

 San Francisco is the principal consumer, though they arc shipped to 

 nearl}* all portions of the State accessible by railroad. The foot-hills, 

 both of the Coast Eange and Sierras, are well adapted to the cultivation 

 of these berries, as well as most of the valleys The berries of the foot- 

 hills are, however, much higher flavored and more delicious fruit than 

 those of any of the valleys. It is a notable fact, that while these excel- 

 lent and healthful berries are among the products of agriculture, the 

 farmers of the State, as a class, are among the smallest consumers. Every 

 farmer should and could raise his own fruits and berries of every descrip- 

 tion, and enjoy them. 



CRANBERRY CULTURE. 



We believe that this valuable berry has never been cultivated to any 

 extent in our State. There is no doubt, however, that their cultivation 

 can be made a successful and very profitable business. The cranberry 

 requires an alluvial soil, with water near the surface, and flourishes best 

 in a mixture of peat or vegetable mould and a coarse washed sand. In 

 the Atlantic States the best mould is found and prepared by working 

 and levelling, and then the sand, frequent^ from a great distance and at 

 great expense, is carted onto and mixed with it. In our State we have 

 thousands of localities, embracing thousands of acres, where this work is 

 already done by the washing of the very best quality of sand from the 

 mines over marsh holes and soft tule beds. Good land in the Atlantic- 

 States for the cultivation of the berry is worth from one to three thou- 

 sand dollars per acre, and a single crop of berries has, from one acre, 

 been known to yield to its owner the nice sum of one thousand dollars, 



