PART THREE: ORCHARD FRUITS 



CHAPTER XVI 



COMMERCIAL FRUIT VARIETIES 



What fruit to plant, or what kind of a bearing orchard to buy as 

 an investment, are questions which can not be answered, in this treatise. 

 The planters on new land and the investors in improved land must 

 answer them for themselves forming their judgments after securing 

 facts which seem to them a proper basis for such a business decision. 

 It is the conviction of the writer that all fruits which have demonstrated 

 commercial suitability in California, when properly placed under the 

 soil, temperature and moisture conditions which favor their best 

 growth and productiveness, may be counted as yielding nearly equal 

 net returns, considering the investment in land, water, waiting for 

 bearing and handling of the product. So far as the writer has 

 observed, all our commercial fruits have reached maximum and mini- 

 mum returns during the last quarter of a century which are practically 

 identical. Therefore to plant good fruit in the best place for it, to 

 handle the trees and products most intelligently, both in production 

 and marketing, holds out substantially equal promise of profit. If it 

 could be demonstrated that any particular fruit had the especial 

 advantage over others in net returns, this advantage would imme- 

 diately disappear because planters would rush to it and take away this 

 advantage by undue increase of its acreage. Therefore the choice 

 of fruits must remain an open question for each one to determine by 

 his own experience and observation, at least to the extent of determin- 

 ing his own line of production. 



It is one of the purposes of this treatise, as they will be disclosed in 

 succeeding chapters, to impress upon the local planters the conviction 

 that their clearest path toward satisfactory income lies in choosing 

 varieties which have demonstrated two fundamental characters, viz. : 

 adaptation to the locality and to the uses of the fruit trade rather 

 than in choosing novelties, no matter how alluring they may be. 



It may surprise the casual reader to find that our production 

 proceeds so largely upon old standard varieties. Anyone, however, 

 who is acquainted with commercial fruit growing knows that it is 

 neither wise nor easy to revolutionize an established and profitable 

 industry by the substitution of new varieties for the old standards. It 

 takes several years to determine whether a new variety is really trust- 

 worthy and suitable, and it takes much longer to get a large acreage 

 in bearing either by grafting or new planting because people are slow 

 and conservative in making changes. As the period of trial of each 

 novelty passes, however, new varieties are accepted, if for any good 

 reason found suitable, and become prominent as their merits justify. 



Another reason why new varieties do not figure more largely 

 in California fruit growing is the smallness of the amateur interest. 

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