1 8 A7i7ials of Horticulture. 



largest ever produced, and the scarcity of fruit in the east 

 caused prices to run high. The last year has witnessed a 

 widespread interest in California fruit throughout the country. 

 The present condition and prospects of California horticulture 

 are discussed for this occasion by Charles Howard Shinn, In- 

 spector of the California Experiment Stations : '^ The growth 

 of the horticultural industries of the State of California has at- 

 tracted much attention, but chiefly in a fragmentar}^ and un- 

 finished way. The field is so large that this is perhaps impos- 

 sible to avoid at present. Statistical science is not well main- 

 tained by the government of California, and horticulture has 

 been especially neglected in this regard. Some counties make 

 admirable reports of the orchards and of similar industries ; 

 others furnish little or nothing that can be depended upon. 

 The nurserymen give no statistics worth the name, and the 

 growers of ornamental plants, cut-flowers and vegetables are 

 not much better. Briefl}^, then, one must depend upon per- 

 sonal observation for a general review of the progress of Cali- 

 fornia horticulture from year to year and decade to decade. 



''A few of the larger statistics that may be accepted as ac- 

 curate are as follows : The area of wine and raisin grape 

 lands is 225,000 acres ; the wine product of 1890 was 18,200,- 

 000 gallons of wine, and 9,000,000 lbs. of dried wine grapes. 

 The raisin crop was 40,000,000 pounds : the prune crop was 

 15,000,000 pounds. The amount of green fruit shipped out 

 of the state was 105,000,000 pounds, or about twenty times 

 the shipments of 1880. The shipments of dried fruits, other 

 than prunes, was 66,318,000 pounds, or about one hundred and 

 twenty times the shipments of ten years ago. The orange 

 shipments now beginning to be sent away will be about 4,000 

 car loads. The value of the cereal, hay and root crops for 

 1890 was about $75,000,000. The population of the state has 

 only increased fifty per cent, since 1880, and is now about 

 1,250,000, but new industries have been created, and the old 

 ones have been developed with a rapidity that is one of the 

 surprises of American agriculture. The total value of all the 

 products of the state in 1890 was more than $303,000,000. 



''The fruit crop of California for 1890 shows, in the various 

 counties of the state, an increase of from twenty to one hun- 

 dred per cent, over the crop of 1889. At the beginning of 

 the season a short crop was expected by the fruit growers, 



