212 CALIFORNIA FRUITS : HOW TO GROW THEM 



shine for drying, are points of the highest industrial importance. The 

 fact is that the apricot has a very wide range in California, and though 

 the trees have been cut out at some points it has been chiefly because 

 too frosty locations have been chosen or because some other fruit has 

 seemed to be locally more desirable, for one reason or another. 



In some valleys in the upper part of the State opening directly to 

 the ocean, there is sometimes complaint of the cracking of the fruit on 

 the sunny side. The alteration of sunshine and fog seems to have 

 something to do with this, for in favorable years, when fogs are few, 

 the fruit is sound. 



Locations for early ripening of the apricot are to be chosen with 

 reference to the influence of topography, as laid down in Chapter I. In 

 a general way, it may be said, in regions directly subject to coast in- 

 fluences, both in northern and southern California, the apricot is late. 

 On the west side of the Sacramento Valley, on slightly elevated places, 

 in small, hill-locked valleys, the earliest apricots have been grown for 

 years. Protected situations in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada, on 

 the eastern rim of both the Sacramento and San Joaquin Valleys, share 

 in the production of the earliest ripening fruit. There is probably 

 about a month's difference in the ripening of the same variety in the 

 earliest situations and in the coast valleys of both northern and south- 

 ern California. 



In the interior of southern California, in irrigated situations, on the 

 west side of the Colorado River and in adjacent parts of Arizona, 

 apricots rival in earliness the product of the famous valleys of interior 

 northern California. 



Recently a measure of success with the apricot has been attained 

 in irrigated sections of eastern Washington, Idaho and Utah. If win- 

 ter temperatures are low enough to keep the tree dormant and yet not 

 injure the fruit buds and frosts are absent after growth begins, success 

 ought to be attainable. 



STOCKS AND SOILS FOR THE APRICOT 



Because of the success with which the apricot can be budded on 

 various stocks, it has a wide range in adaptation to different soils. 

 Budded on the peach root it may be grown successfully on the light, 

 warm, well-drained loams in which the peach delights. The peach 

 root is, in fact, largely used for the apricot. It gives the tree quick 

 growth and early fruiting, and the fact that the gopher does not like 

 the peach root is a consideration with some planters. In growing 

 stocks, pits of a strong-growing yellow peach are believed to yield 

 more uniform and thrifty seedlings. 



For deep, rich, well-drained, loamy soils, the apricot on its own 

 root makes a magnificent tree. Apricot roots for budding are easily 

 secured. The pits sprout as readily as corn. Sometimes, where cutting 

 and drying are done in the orchard, the ground the next spring will be 

 almost covered with a volunteer crop of seedling apricots. These little 

 plants, taken up and set out in nursery rows in March, are ready for 

 budding in June or July. Large numbers of trees are sometimes 



