Discussion. 45 



interest to any unaccustomed eye, and to an accustomed eye 

 as well, but a few weeks of study and careful inquiries and 

 observation of the orange interest took away a good deal of 

 the enchantment that distance lends to it. While it is their 

 most attractive fruit and while the beauty and poetry of 

 their southern homes are due to their orange orchards and 

 ranches about their houses and all that, the fact is here that 

 orange culture is perhaps as unprofitable and has as little of 

 profit in it as any one fruit industry in the state. That may 

 seem queer to one going into an orange orchard that has 

 cost twenty years of unceasing toil to get up to its present 

 condition and to see the trees loaded with fruit that they 

 have been accustomed to pay from three to six cents apiece 

 for, and to see men gathering these fruits with the utmost 

 care and packing them in boxes. These cases have to be 

 transported thousands of miles and if subjected to frost 

 they are lost. You ask the price and you find that the pro- 

 ducer gets less than a cent apiece, getting less than 

 $5 a thousand for them, and you begin to think back on th© 

 question and wonder where he makes his profit. This price 

 happens sometimes but not generally. They generally get 

 from seventy-five cents to a dollar a box for them in the 

 boxes. There are here large amounts of oranges, one or two 

 thousand on a tree, so that you see the product of an acre 

 amounts to something even at these prices. The aggregate 

 of an acre of oranges is large. This year prices were higher. 

 I see some money in orange culture, and if I lived in south- 

 ern California I should have an orange orchard and take the 

 chances of its paying me. The great drawback to orange 

 culture is this: The white scale and the red scale, which 

 differs very little fiom the insect that is ruining your maple 

 trees in this city. It is not as prevalent there though as it is 

 here and they are using the most strenuous methods to fight 

 it down. It is not in every locality. They have very strin- 

 gent legal enactments and fines for aliowiig it to remain 

 where it is. Every pains is taken to hold it in check, but it 

 is a very formidable enemy and obstacle. 



Next to the orange orchards a new comer will be most 

 impressed by the vineyards. When you come to that you 



