1 1 £ Transactions of the 



FRUIT CULTURE. 



BY ROBERT WILLIAMSON, OP SACRAMENTO. 



The subject of fruit culture is one fraught with deep interest to every 

 thinking mind, and is destined to be a pleasing and profitable study to 

 the end of time. The fruit of the tree and vine is one of God's best gifts 

 to men. .But like many of His beneficent gifts is too lightly appreciated 

 and most sadly neglected by the great mass of the people. But the few 

 who appreciate this boon of Heaven and have given the subject the con- 

 sideration which it merits, have found in it a source of pleasure and a 

 store of knowledge rarely found in the study of any other subject. This 

 Study is inexhaustible in itself? A man may study it from youth to old 

 age, and it is ever new and pleasing. The more we know of it the more 

 we admire it. 



WILL IT PAY? 



But let us turn from the amateur's view of the subject and look at it 

 from a financial .standpoint. We are asked if it will pay? This (with 

 the masses) is the ail important question. This question we would 

 answer in the affirmative. 



Fruit growing (when intelligently followed) will pay in any part of 

 the civilized world, and especially in California. Not that we have a bet- 

 ter market than elsewhere, but because we can produce a greater variety 

 in larger quantities and with less labor than any other one portion of 

 the globe with the same area of land. This I am aware will sound like 

 exaggeration. But to convince ourselves that such is the fact, we have 

 only to remember that we have in California a. greater variety of cli- 

 mates and soils than can be found in any other country of equal extent. 

 !Not even the Republic of Mexico or our sister States and Territories on 

 the Pacific Coast, can lay claim to all the advantages which our geo- 

 graphical position gives us in this respect. 



OUR CLIMATE. 



In California we have a climate varying almost from the extreme of 

 heat to the excessive cold, with a soil equally as varied. Hence we need 

 not go beyond the climate of our own 8tate to find a locality where we 

 can successfully grow the tropical fruits, or to find another locality as 

 well adapted to growing the fruits peculiar to the, northern climates. 

 The intelligent fruit grower has only to decide what he wants to grow 

 and then select his locality, make a judicious selection of varieties, plant 

 them properly, and give them proper attention afterwards, and he may 

 count on certain success. But he who goes to work to plant a market 

 orchard on a soil or in a climate not adapted to the fruits he intends to 

 grow, or makes a wrong selection of varieties, or takes no pains to plant 

 properly, or takes no care of his trees or vines after they are planted, 



