10 CALIFORNIA FRUITS: HOW TO GROW THEM 



and by the sharp criteria of the markets as well, that the fruits of 

 wintry regions are quite as much benefited by transfer to proper 

 locations in California as are the people who come to grow them. 

 From north and south alike, then, California makes grand acquisi- 

 tions and includes within her area the adaptations of the whole 

 country, with some which no other State possesses. 



But while this horticulutral scope is claimed for the State as a 

 whole, it is necessary to add that local adaptations within the State 

 must be very narrowly drawn. Our greatest failures have followed 

 ill choice of location for the purpose intended. Whenever certain 

 California fruits have been ill spoken of, they have been produced 

 in the wrong places, or by ill-advised methods. It is possible, 

 then, to produce both poor and perfect fruit of a given kind. It 

 may be said this can be done anywhere by the extremes of culture 

 and neglect, but to this proposition it must be added that in Cali- 

 fornia equally excellent methods and care may produce perfection 

 in one place and the opposite in another. One who seeks to know 

 California well must undertake to master both its horticultural 

 greatness and littleness; and so closely are these associated, and 

 so narrow the belts of special adaptations, that there are many 

 counties which have a range of products nearly as great as the 

 State itself. 



It is hard for the stranger to realize this. It is difficult for 

 him to believe that the terms "northern" and "southern" have 

 almost no horticultural significance in California; that northern fruits 

 reach perfection, under proper conditions, at the south, and vice versa; 

 that some regions of greatest rainfall have to irrigate most frequently ; 

 that some of greatest heat have sharpest valley frosts; that some 

 fruits can be successfully grown through a north and south distance 

 of 300 miles, but can not be successfully carried a few hundred feet 

 of either less or greater elevation ; that on the same parallel of latitude 

 within a hundred miles of distance, from coast to mountainside, one 

 can continuously gather marketable Bartlett pears for three months 

 not to mention the second crop, from belated blossoms, which is often 

 of account on the same trees in the same season. 



Through the multitude of local observations, which seem per- 

 plexing and almost contradictory, it is possible to clearly discern 

 certain general conditions, of both nature and culture, which may 

 be briefly advanced as characteristically and distinctively Cali- 

 fornian. 



The climate of the Pacific Coast is described by the meteorologist 

 as "insular or moderate," as contrasted with the "continental or 

 excessive" climate of the regions east of the Sierra Nevada. The 

 west coast of Europe is also insular in its climate. The northern 

 limit of an annual mean temperature of 50 degrees Fahr. is 50 

 degrees and 47 degrees of north latitude on western coasts of Europe 

 and America respectively. But though there is this similarity in 

 mean annual temperature, there is a decided advantage pertaining to 

 our climate over that of west Europe in that our range of temperature 

 is less; that is, extremes of heat and cold are nearer together, and 



