48 CALIFORNIA FRUITS: HOW TO GROW THEM 



than fruit orchards. Two ideas, at least, led in this direction. One 

 was the popular thought, which, however, was very early found to be 

 erroneous, that frequent arid copious irrigation was essential to the 

 growth of fruit in this dry climate. Another was the ambition, which 

 was correct, both from a horticultural and commercial point of view, 

 to secure the fruit just as soon as possible, for the double purpose of 

 determining what was adapted to the novel conditions, and to secure 

 the magnificent prices which fruit commanded in the market. For 

 these ends dwarfing stocks naturally suggested themselves, and were 

 employed to an extent which seems wonderful when it is 

 remembered that now hardly a fruit tree in the State is worked upon 

 a dwarfing stock. Very early, say from '52 to '58, at San Jose, Oak- 

 land, Stockton and Sacramento, small areas, which would now only be 

 considered respectable house lots, were turned to great profit with 

 dwarf pear and apple trees. The place of Mr. Fountain, near Oakland, 

 was called, in 1857, "The finest orchard of dwarf trees in the State." It 

 consisted of three acres set with one thousand six hundred apple and 

 pear trees, all dwarf from root grafts, two years old, and four feet 

 high, and most of them in good bearing. He started the branches from 

 the ground, pruning severely, and heading in during the winter. He 

 claimed that dwarfing gave him better and larger fruit, and from two 

 to three years sooner than with standard trees. He did not irrigate, 

 but plowed frequently, four inches deep, up to the first of June. 



But though these dwarf-tree gardens were formally declared "to 

 be the fashion," and though the list of stock of one Sacramento 

 nurseryman, in 1858, included ninety-five standard and eight thousand 

 and sixty-eight dwarf pear trees for sale, the foundations of the greater 

 orchards were early laid upon the basis of standard trees. Thus the 

 Briggs' orchard, of one thousand acres on the moist land of the Yuba, 

 was planted with trees sixteen feet apart each way, and Mr. Lewelling, 

 and other earlv planters on the rich lands of central Alameda county, 

 adopted about the same distance. 



Quite in contrast, too, with the prevalence of dwarf trees, and 

 contemporaneous with it, was the grand plan upon which the pioneer 

 of pioneers, General Sutter, laid out his orchard on Hock Farm, on 

 the west bank of the Feather River, eight miles from, its junction with 

 the Yuba, of which the following description was written about the 

 time the trees were coming into bearing: 



Several acres were set apart for an ornamental fruit orchard, the trees and 

 shrubs being so arranged as to present a unique landscape garden, nearly every 

 article in which is productive of fruit. The arrangement of the fruit trees is 

 peculiar, a large portion of them being set on either side of the broad avenues 

 opening through the extensive grounds in various directions, imparting to the 

 whole an air of picturesque beauty seldom seen. 



But neither the narrow dwarf-tree garden plan nor the broad 

 landscape-garden plan has survived. Neither of them harmonized 

 with the commercial idea of orcharding large production and 

 economy of cultivation, and both are now but curiosities ^of the early 

 horticulture of California. 



