494 THE MONTHLY BULLETIN". 



In certain localities, where soil conditions are favorable neither to 

 the production of large crops of table grapes, nor high quality, some 

 reduction of acreage is inevitable. In fact, frequently these places are 

 well fitted for the production of paying crops of alfalfa. Through the 

 extension of irrigation ditches or- the installing of pumping plants 

 operated by distillate or electric power, it is now becoming possible in 

 many localities to thus produce paying crops of the safest and surest 

 crop in California — alfalfa. 



High grade table grapes usually sell at a profit ; second grade grapes, 

 such as poorly colored, compact-clustered Tokays, which mould and rot 

 in the center of the bunches in transit, usually sell at a loss. If a grower 

 finds that one part of his vineyard produces this undesirable type of 

 grape, the sooner he digs out or grafts out that portion the better. 

 There are many vineyards now for sale at about two hundred dollars an 

 acre, which, if in alfalfa instead of vines, would be worth three hundred 

 dollars an acre. Some of the. best alfalfa land makes the poorest grape 

 lancL Type of soil has much to do with the selling price of grapes. 



In the NeW York sales catalogues there is frequently a difference of 

 three hundred dollars a car in sales of grapes shipped from the same 

 district, packed the same, handled the same, and the same variety, but 

 grown on different soils. One line will be selling for seven hundred to 

 eight hundred dollars a car, returning no real profit whatever, while 

 another line, grown on different land only a few miles distant. Avill sell 

 at eleven hundred to twelve hundred dollars a car, netting the grower 

 handsome profits. 



So great is the difference in selling prices that it is quite likely a few 

 years from now that further planting of table grapes will be carried on 

 on the black lands south of Lodi, while at the same time the grub-hoe 

 may be at work on other vineyards almost M-ithin rifle shot. 



The grower who is up against it financially, owing to the disastrous 

 prices of the last five years, cannot afford to make sweeping changes. 

 In many cases his ready money and his credit are almost exhausted. 

 The small vineyardist owning ten or twenty acres and nothing else, 

 situated where he cannot grow quality grapes, is in a serious predica- 

 ment. He needs all the counsel and guidance and help that can be 

 given him, not only by the county horticultural commissioners and by 

 farmers' institutes, but also by his local banker. The one saving fact 

 with many a California vineyardist is that, owing to the influx of land 

 seekers into our State, and because of the prosperous conditions of our 

 dairy and live stock industry on alfalfa lands, the selling price of land 

 has doubled in ten years, thus recouping some of the losses of the 

 vineyard. 



There is one striking feature of much of the small planting in our 

 interior valleys, even on land that is fitted to grow diversified crops; 

 there are too many one-crop tracts — one cannot call them farms. The 

 settler is too apt, on the shallow advice of some glib real estate agent, 

 to put all his eggs in one basket. He is told that this crop or that crop 



