THIS RAISIN INDUSTRY. 9 



were the grapes grown there that they attracted great attention; 

 no such fine grapes had ever been seen in Andalusia before. The 

 merchants to whom the first raisins were sold were much aston- 

 ished, and wonderingly asked whence they came. The reply, "from 

 the Dehesa," was from that time on applied to the finest Muscatel 

 grapes. 



LEXIAS, OR LYE-DIPPED, AND OTHER RAISINS. 



The third class of raisins are the dipped raisins, so called from 

 being dipped in boiling lye before being dried and cured. The Span- 

 ish name for these raisins is Lexias. The name Lexia is, again, derived 

 from a more ancient word, the Latin lixivium , or lixia, meaning lye. 

 To-day the continental name for this class of raisin is Lexias, when 

 the more specific names of Denias and Valencias are not used. Here, in 

 America, we generally use these names, and whenever we speak of 

 Valencias and Denias we mean the dipped raisins of these districts. 

 To the above three classes of raisins we might appropriately add 

 Sultanas and Malagas. The Sultanas are made from the Sultana 

 grape, a seedless grape from Asia Minor, now grown in many Mediter- 

 ranean countries, as well as here in California. The Malagas, again, 

 were originally the Muscatels grown around Malaga, in Spain; but 

 of late this name is being, with considerable confusion, applied to a 

 coarser raisin made in California from a grape here called, for want 

 of a better name, the Malaga grape. 



Among names which were formerly much used, but which have 

 gone out of use, was the Solis, or sun-dried raisins, especially the 

 sun-dried Muscatels of Malaga. As early as 1295 A. D., the Muscatels 

 were generally called thus: Raisins of the sun; Solis, or sun-dried, so 

 as to distinguish them from the inferior dipped, or Lexias. In our 

 own time, this name was nearly being revived, when a couple of years 

 ago our California sun-dried raisins were spoken of in opposition to our 

 machine-diied raisins, and when both classes had their earnest and 

 enthusiastic champions. 



We cannot leave this chapter on names without referring to classes 

 of raisins receiving their names from "certain localities. Of course, the 

 number of such names may be almost endless. It is, however, only 

 of interest to refer to the principal ones, such as have been known 

 to commerce in former days or are yet known. Thus, we designate as 

 Malagas any of the raisins grown and shipped from Malaga. The 

 Smyrnas (formerly Smirna) are those from Smyrna, in Asia Minor, 

 both sun-dried and dipped raisins; the Alicantes, dipped raisins, from 

 Alicante, in Spain; the Denias, dipped raisins from Denia, in Spain; 

 the Valencias, dipped raisins from Valencia (include Denias); the 

 Liparf, raisins from the Island of L,ipari, near Sicily; the Bel- 

 videres, from the. same island and from the Island of Pantellaria; 

 the Calabrian raisins, from Calabria, in Italy; the Faro raisins, from 

 the port of Faro, in Algarve, Portugal. We have above already 

 referred to the currants, from the town of Corinth and the Grecian 

 Islands, and the Malagas, from Malaga. The latter were also known 

 as ' ' great raisins, ' ' on account of their superior quality. Among the 



