THE MONTHLY BULLETIN. -195 



is going to net him a hundred or two hundred dollars an acre. This 

 sounds very good, indeed, and he risks his all on a one-crop venture. 

 Perhaps the whole neighborhood does the same and the evils incident 

 to monoculture come to pass. The district may have but one main 

 resource and if anything happens to that a blight falls on the whole 

 community. 



There is a special justification on the small orchard or vineyard for 

 one or two or three acres of alfalfa instead of all fruit or grapes. The 

 farmer's own family affords a home market, at full retail prices, for all 

 the milk, butter, veal, pork, chickens and eggs raised on that acre or 

 two. Allowing the prices that would have to be paid for these necessi- 

 ties, the indirect products of one acre of alfalfa may often be worth a 

 hundred dollars for home consumption. The substitution of alfalfa for 

 a fraction of the vineyard does not necessarily mean much permanent 

 reduction in the tonnage of grapes shipped off the place, for the fertil- 

 izer produced will tend to increase or at least maintain the annual 

 production of the vineyard. 



Many thoughtful men are convinced that some reduction of the table 

 grape acreage in sections where grapes are of medium or poor quality, 

 ripening only during the .six or eight weeks of glutted markets, is inevi- 

 table. Let us hope to see this reduction come about by degrees and in a 

 rational way, and not as a panic of destruction, as may be possible, 

 should one or two more disastrous seasons follow. In some instances 

 growers are wisely planning to plant suitable fruit or nut trees, digging 

 out every third vine, with the intention of eventually removing the 

 remaining vines when the trees are old enough to bear. 



Standardization. 



Three seasons ago a movement of immen.se importance to our fruit 

 and grape growers was initiated by a clear-visioned man, who perceived 

 the all-important truth that, without some concerted movement to raise 

 the standard of our grape and fruit shipments, our markets could not 

 be maintained nor extended. Like all reforms, standardization has had 

 its difficulties, but on the whole, as growers are becoming educated to its 

 necessity, it is winning out and must eventually become widely estab- 

 lished. The early shipments of table grapes of established standard this 

 season, previous to the September rains, sold at handsome prices, fully 

 justifying standardization. 



Unfortunately in September, 1912, most of the grapes of California 

 M^ere soaked by a heavy rain. The interior berries of the more compact 

 clusters were softened by the invasion of the botrytis, or slip-skin mould. 

 It is very difficult for the packers to find and cull out all the berries 

 injured by this fungus, as the color and texture is not always perceptibly 

 affected. It was not always possible for the inspectors to determine 

 which grapes would carry in good shape, and which would arrive with 

 whiskers on them. As a result some thousands of cars failed to arrive 

 in satisfactory condition. This has caused some criticism of standardiza- 



