224 



PEAR GROWING TN CALIFORNIA. 



industries of California. During the year 1916, according to the best 

 available figures, there were 17,764 acres of pear trees in bearing and 

 23,325 acres that had not yet come into bearing in the state. In 1917 

 the bearing area was increased to 20,473 acres and the nonbearing to 

 28.069 acres. During 1917 there were shipped from the state 4.798 

 carloads of pears.* In addition there were dried in Lake County alone 

 the equivalent of 3,981 tons green fruit. The total production of ship- 

 ping, drying and canning pears was approximately 90,000 tons. 



At the present time the leading pear-growing county of the state is 

 Sacramento, where the production in 1917 was 26,669 tons. The Santa 

 Clara Valley, the "cradle" of the commercial industry, is still an 

 important section for the growing of this fruit. It is in this valley that 

 many other varieties besides the Bartlett have been successfully pro- 

 duced. The latter is, however, by far the most important variety grown 

 in the state and California is noted because of the splendid quality and 

 quantity of Bartletts, which, either fresh, canned or dried, are known 

 in all the principal markets of the world. 



The table to be found on a succeeding page of this chapter, which 

 shows the acreage of pears in each of the counties where the industry 

 is at all important, illustrates the fact that there are possibilities in the 



Fig. 2. Typical scene in tlie pear orchard section of El Dorado County. 



growing of this fruit that have never yet been realized. In the foot- 

 hills of the Sierras, where the first plantings were made by the pioneers 

 of the gold mining days; in the coast valleys and in the hills of the 

 coast range of mountains from Eureka to Santa Barbara ; in the fertile 

 valleys of the Feather, Sacramento, San Joaquin and other inland 

 rivers; and in the desert sections of the south, including the Imperial 

 Valley, where they are growing below the level of the sea, planting has 

 been going on and pears are being produced successfully, upon a com- 

 mercial basis. Available land for profitable pear culture may be found 

 in practically every count}' of the state, and wlien we consider the pos- 



♦Figures from California Fruit News of December 29, 1917. 



