360 CALIFORNIA FRUITS: HOW TO GROW THEM 



gentler and warmer there, and there is winter service rendered by this 

 eastward trend of the southern California mountains, as has been said, 

 but the fact remains that the absence of high barriers against ocean 

 influences retards the springtime and causes a slow development of 

 summer conditions and late ripening of fruits, while the presence of 

 high barriers at the north so hastens springtime and summer heat, that 

 early summer fruits in California are shipped from the north to the 

 south a thing which does not occur anywhere else in the northern 

 hemisphere. It is due to this same early start which the local topog- 

 raphy gives to the orange, followed by the high summer heat which 

 is essential to the development of a good orange, that the orange reaches 

 an acceptable commercial condition at an earlier date in suitable 

 interior places at the north and is at present being almost wholly shipped 

 to eastern markets before free movement begins at the south. This 

 early marketing also relieves the growers of much anxiety and costly 

 frost righting, because the fruit, which is always more susceptible to 

 injury that the tree, is out of the way before the frost period, which 

 usually begins about Christmas, is reached. 



There is in southern California, east of the mountains, a district 

 which has thus far been but scantily developed where protection from 

 ocean influences tends to early ripening of fruits. The same is true of 

 some parts of Arizona adjacent, and small quantities of early fruits 

 move westward and northward from that region. That region is not 

 in view in this discussion, for too little has been accomplished in citrus 

 lines to warrant conclusions which the present confident planting in 

 that part of the State will soon supply. 



Third : Still another feature of local topography must be mentioned 

 as influencing citrus conditions north and south and explaining why 

 winter temperature has fallen no lower at the north that at the south. 

 At the north the snow fields of the high mountains are farther from the 

 valleys and mesas, where citrus fruits are grown than they are at the 

 south. The benches and low foothills of the Sacramento Valley, for 

 instance, are forty to fifty miles from the high range to the east of them 

 and there intervene countless ridges of high foothills and small valleys, 

 and before the citrus plantations can be reached by the descending air 

 currents they are considerably warmed by rustling over so much land 

 which has been warmed by the ampler winter sunshine. From many of 

 the southern citrus regions one looks almost directly upward and out- 

 ward upon the grand snow-clad mountains, whose crests are but fif- 

 teen to twenty-five miles away. It is a splendid scenic effect ripening 

 oranges and dazzling snow fields in the same glance of the eye, but it is 

 sometimes not so grand as a pomological proposition. 



Fourth: Another protective influence for citrus fruit trees during 

 the frosty period of December and January, is the low canopy of land 

 fog which covers the interior valley of central and northern California 

 much of the time at that season of the year and checks the radiation 

 of ground heat which is apt to take place rapidly under a clear sky. 

 Though the nights are thus often protected from frosts, the day tem- 

 perature is held low, which is also of account, because the citrus trees 

 are held dormant, which is desirable, as there is no fruit to ripen. On 



