186 THE RAISIN INDUSTRY. 



are busy assorting the grapes, and placing the various grades in dif- 

 ferent sweatboxes, large enough to hold one hundred pounds each. 

 In every vineyard, large and small, we find the hands at work, and 

 every one able and willing to do a day's work is engaged to harvest 

 the large crop. The most of the pickers are Chinese, at least in 

 the larger vineyards, while in the smaller vineyards, where large gangs 

 of men are not absolutely necessary, white men and boys are generally 

 employed. The fame of the raisin section and the harvest has spread 

 far and wide, and at picking time laborers gather from all parts of the 

 State to take part in the work, and find remunerative wages at from 

 $1.25 to $1.50 per day. The country now swarms with pickers of all 

 nationalities, Germans, Armenians, Chinese, Americans, Scandina- 

 vians, etc. , and as the schools have closed in order to allow the children 

 to take part in the work, boys of all sizes are frequently seen kneeling 

 at the vines. 



The crop this year is very heavy, many vines yielding two trays or 

 _eyen three, containing twenty pounds each, and, as the trays are gen- 

 erally" placed in alternate rows between the vines, we see, as we pass, 

 \ continuous lines of them filled with grapes in various stages of curing, 

 \| from the green to the amber-colored and the dark of the fully-cured 

 ' raisin. The aroma from the drying berries is noticeable, and the 

 breeze is laden with the spicy and pronounced odor of the Muscatel 

 raisins. 



,/ The average size of a colony lot is twenty acres. Many settlers own 

 two or three lots, a few owning four or five. But it must not be 

 understood that the whole of these lots are planted to raisin grapes. 



4 While most of the larger tracts are almost exclusively planted to raisin 

 grapes, the smaller farms of twenty acres contain as a rule only a few 

 acres of vines, the balance being occupied by alfalfa, berries, garden, 

 fruit trees, and yard for houses and barns. From three to fifteen acres 

 of raisin- vines are found on every twenty- acre farm ; none is without 

 its patch of raisin-vines. We step off and inspect many of the places, 

 large as well as small. Magnificent vineyards are owned by T. C. 

 ,X White, one of the oldest and most successful vineyardists, and by 

 other parties, only second in importance to his. The vineyard of the 

 late Miss Austin is yet in its prime, the evergreen trees and hedges being 

 as inviting as in days of old. New vineyards which have not yet come 

 into bearing are seen on every side, while in places whole orchards or 

 single rows of trees have yielded to the axe to be replaced by the bet- 

 ter-paying raisin-vines. 



Some of the best-paying and largest vineyards are found east of 

 1 1 Fresno City. From the very outskirts of the city we pass through 

 raisin vineyards, very few fields being planted with anything else. 

 Near the town some vineyards have given place to town lots, and 

 whole villages are growing up in the old vineyards. We pass by 

 the large vineyard of Frank Ball, containing about 120 acres, all in 

 vines except a small reserve for house, barn and alfalfa field. Adjoining 

 on the same road is the Bretzner vineyard of forty odd acres, the vines 

 loaded with grapes. We turn to the left and, passing the vineyards of 

 Merriam and Reed, see on our left the magnificent Cory vineyard of 



