THE RAISIN INDUSTRY. 



A PRACTICAL TREATISE ON THE RAISIN GRAPES, 



THEIR HISTORY, CULTURE AND CURING, WITH 



SPECIAL REFERENCE TO CALIFORNIA, 



BY GUSTAV EISEN. 



Copyrighted. 



HISTORICAL. 



RAISINS. 



The word "raisin," as spelled and pronounced to-day, is not of 

 very ancient origin, but rather a corruption and evolution of older 

 words, both spelled and pronounced differently. Thus Falstaff replies 

 to Prince Hal: "If reasons were as plentiful as blackberries, I would 

 give no man a reason upon compulsion " (Henry IV, Act II, scene 4). 

 Also, Cooper, in his dictionary of 1685, indicates that "raisin" and 

 "reason" are of identical sounds. The derivation of the word has, 

 again, been very variously suggested either from "red" or "rose" 

 color, connecting it with the German and Danish word " rosine\ " and 

 it has even been suggested that the word was derived from the fact 

 that the raisins were cured in the " rays" of the sun. The true deri- 

 vation, however, is from the Latin word " racemus," meaning a bunch 

 or cluster. Richardson, who first points out this derivation, quotes : 

 "Whether a reisyn (E. V. graap, racemus) of Effraym is not better 

 than the vindages of Abiezer " (WiclifFe Judges VIIJ, 2). "And there 

 shall be left in it as a rasyn " (E. W, braunches of a cluster). Margi- 

 nal note, "-A rasyn is a lytil bow with a lytil fruit" (Idem. Is., XVIJ-, 

 6). But we have much older testimony of this derivation being the 

 correct one. An old document states that, in 1265 A. D., the Countess 

 of Leicester paid in London twelve shillings for fourteen pounds, or, 

 as the statement reads in Latin, "Pro uno fraello racemorum; " which, 

 translated, would be, "for one frail of bunches." The evolution of 

 the Latin word racemus was thus seen to have been accomplished rap- 

 idly enough ; but, on account of the illiteracy of the olden times, it 

 was spelled and pronounced promiscuously. Thus we meet with such 

 spellings as " reysyns" in 1266; " reysons" in 1447 ("Russell's Book 

 of Nurture"). In 1554 the Stationers' Company in London paid two- 

 pence for one pound of " greate reasons;" while Andrew Borde, in 

 his " Dietary " of 1542, says that "great ray sens be nutrytyve, specyally 

 yf the stones be pulled out" In 1578 Dodoens speaks of dried raysens. 

 In 1685 the word "raisin" is used and spelled as in our days, and 



