38 THE RAISIN INDUSTRY.' 



best Huasco raisin sells at fifty cents per pound in the local market, 

 and is decidedly the most high-priced raisin known. The best variety 

 is scarce even in Chile, and in Chilean statistics I could not find any 

 quoted. The following houses in Huasco are dealers in fruits and 

 raisins: Juan Quijada, Ramon F. Martinez, and Jose Manuel Balma- 

 ceda. The export from the port of Huasco in 1885 amounted only to 

 $685,853. How large a portion of this was raisins is not known. 



CALIFORNIA RAISIN DISTRICTS. 







A GENERAL REVIEW. 



Early History. While the planting of raisin grapes and the produc- 

 tion of raisins in California dates back some thirty odd years, the raisin 

 industry cannot be said to be as yet twenty years old. Already, in 

 1851, Col. Agoston Haraszthy grew Muscatel vines from seeds of 

 Malaga raisins. On the 25th of March, 1852, he imported the Muscat 

 of Alexandria from Malaga, and ten years later, during a visit to that 

 place on September 27, 1861, he selected cuttings of the Gordo Blanco 

 which afterwards were grown and propagated on his San Diego county 

 vineyard. The same year he imported Sultana vines from Malaga, and 

 white and red Corinth from Crimea. Col. Haraszthy was trius the first 

 one to introduce the raisin-vines in this State. Another importation of 

 the ovoid Muscat of Alexandria was made in 1855 by A. Delmas and 

 planted at San Jose, according to a statement made by his son D. M. 

 Delmas,* the prominent San Francisco lawyer. G. G. Briggs of 

 Davisville also imported Muscatel grapes from Malaga in Spain; while 

 R. B. Blowers of Woodland, Yolo county, started his raisin vineyard 

 in 1863 from Gordo Blanco cuttings received from Col. Haraszthy. 



j In 1876, W. S. Chapman, imported the best Muscatels from Spain for 

 his colonists in the Central California Colony in Fresno, which proved in 



* no way different from those already growing there. Who produced the 

 first raisins in California will probably never be satisfactorily known. 

 According to page 88 of the Report of the State Agricultural Society 



/of California, 1863, cured raisins were exhibited by Dr. J. Strentzel at 

 the State Fair in 1863.! The first successful raisin vineyards in the 

 State were those planted by G. G. Briggs at Davisville in Solano 

 county, and by R. B. Blowers at Woodland in Yolo county. Both 

 these gentlemen grew the raisin grapes on a large scale, and shipped 

 raisins extensively. The Briggs vineyard consisted mainly of Muscats 

 of Alexandria, while the Blowers vineyard contained the Gordo 

 Blanco. Both these vineyards produced raisins as early as 1867; but 

 it was not until 1873 th.it. their raisins cut? any conspicuous figure in the 



, market. That year si ^ thousand boxes were produced in the State, the 

 majority by far coming from these two vineyards. 



Later Planting. In 1873, in the fall, the Muscat vines were first 

 brought to the Fresno raisin district, where twenty-five acres of Muscat 

 of Alexandria were planted in the Eisen vineyard. A few years later, 

 or in 1876 and 1877, T. C. White planted the Raisina Vineyard in the 

 Central California Colony near Fresno from Gordo Blanco Muscatels 



* See also Wickson's "California Fruits," page 357. t Same, page 79. 



