PEACH REGIONS OF CALIFORNIA 235 



As for possible productiveness of the peach, one Susquehanna 

 tree in Kern county yielded twenty-seven forty-five pound picking- 

 boxes twelve hundred and fifty pounds in one crop about four times 

 as much as good trees may average. 



LOCALITIES FOR THE PEACH 



The peach has a wide range in California, and finds many districts 

 suited to it in the several ways in which the trade delights it it. 

 As compared with the apricot, the peach thrives in the sheltered 

 valleys of the district north of the bay and west of the Coast Range, 

 in which the apricot is of little commercial moment; it yields those 

 peerlessly beautiful "mountain peaches" from one to two thousand 

 feet higher in the Sierra foothills than the apricot can be trusted; it 

 goes everywhere in the lower foothills and over the great valleys that 

 the apricot will go, and beyond it also, because it is less restless in 

 the spring and escapes some frosts which injure apricots. Counted 

 from trees in orchard the peach is more than three times as great as 

 the apricot. 



Nearly every county in California reports the possession of peach 

 trees. Above an elevation of four thousand feet on the sides of the 

 Sierra Nevada, they may be subject to winter killing, and lower still 

 the careful choice of situation has to be made to avoid frost at blooming 

 time the peach in such places being subjected to some dangers 

 which beset it in the eastern States. Below these points, however, 

 lies the great fruit belt of the foothills of the Sierra, where the peach 

 is the chief fruit grown and its excellence is proverbial. Size, beauty, 

 richness, delicacy of flavor and firmness, which endures carriage to 

 the most distant markets, are all characteristics of the foothill peaches 

 of California. 



In the great interior valleys of the State wherever proper condition 

 of soil and water supply can be found, the peach also thrives, the tree 

 making a wonderfully quick and large growth, and the fruit attaining 

 great size. The San Joaquin Valley is the greatest peach district 

 in the State. 



In the small valleys on the west of the great valley and on the 

 eastern slopes of the Coast Range, there are also extensive areas 

 suited to the peach, and sheltered places on the eastern and western 

 edges of the Sacramento Valley have produced the earliest fruit for 

 a long series of years. Recently the contest for the earliest fruit 

 of these districts, with the foothill district on the east side of the 

 Sacramento Valley and special locations in the upper San Joaquin 

 Valley, has been quite close. 



In the coast valleys, opening upon San Francisco Bay and the 

 Pacific Ocean, the peach is also a leading fruit. Its success is greatest, 

 however, where good shelter is had from direct coast influences. Even 

 where open to these influences, good peaches can be grown by choosing 

 the smaller range of varieties, which do well by protecting the trees 

 from harsh winds, and by seeking elevation above depressed valleys, 

 whose frosts are frequent. The occurrence of curl-leaf is a factor 



