, 



46 THE RAISIN INPUSTRY. 



purposes. The climate is warm and dry during the summer, while the 

 winters are not very rainy. From seven to ten inches of rain are an 

 average in Fresno; south to Kern the rainfall decreases, five and 

 a half inches being an average around Delano. Towards the northern 

 end of the valley, the rainfall increases, and in Merced county varies 

 between ten and twenty inches, fifteen inches being a high average. 

 In no portion of the raisin-producing portion of the valley can raisin 

 grapes be grown without irrigation, the natural rainfall being entirely 

 insufficient. The lowest temperature is about eighteen degrees Fahren- 

 heit in Fresno, generally in January, while the highest is one hundred 

 and eighteen degrees Fahrenheit in the shade in July and August. The 

 lowest temperature is reached once in from three to five years, and the 

 highest quoted is similarly scarce. The high average in summer 

 time is one hundred and ten in the shade, and for three months of the 

 year the thermometer every day can be counted on to vary between one 

 hundred and one hundred and ten in the shade. In the winter, 

 twenty degrees Fahrenheit is often reached, and the end of December 

 and January may be counted on as being cold and frosty. These 

 figures all refer to the level plain land, where the most of the vineyards 

 are planted, and not to the foothills or the thermal belt, nor to the 

 high Sierra Nevada, where snow and ice are common, and where 

 glaciers cover many of the highest mountain peaks. The most rainfall 

 occurs from December to February, and the rain continues more or 

 less scattering to April and May. There is only very seldom a shower 

 in the summer, one perhaps in three years. In the mountains, the fall 

 rains commence about the middle of August, on the plains again in 

 October and November, sometimes even later. Dew is rare in summer 

 time, but common from the beginning of October. Fog is rare, some- 

 times an unwelcome visitor in November, but never known at any 

 other time of the year. Spring frosts are almost unknown, and occur 

 only once in from five to eight years. 



Irrigation. Irrigation is practiced wherever raisins are grown. The 

 water is taken from the rivers, from Kings river in the Fresno 

 district, and from the Merced, Kaweah and Kern rivers, etc., in the 

 other districts. Before irrigation was begun in the Fresno districts, 

 there were from fifty to sixty feet of dry soil before the natural water 

 level was reached; but this has been so changed through a few 

 years of constant irrigation, that now in places the land is subirrigated 

 or moist to the surface, while in places even the soil requires to be 

 drained, and no other irrigation is now needed except to allow the 

 water to flow in the main or secondary canals, from which it seeps and 

 keeps the soil filled with water, the moisture rising from below. The 

 irrigation when practiced is done by flooding or by irrigating in furrows. 

 New land must be irrigated until it becomes subirrigated; but, when 

 once this is done, no separate irrigation becomes necessary. Many 

 vineyards planted on subirrigated land which was once dry land have 

 never since been irrigated. 



The Vineyard. The general distance of the vines is eight by 

 eight or ten by ten feet, varying in different vineyards. Of late, there 

 have been some efforts made to improve upon these distances, and to 



