48 CALIFORNIA FRUITS: HOW TO GROW THEM 



Sacramento, small areas, which would now only be considered re- 

 spectable 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 thou- 

 sand 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 other early 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 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. 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 fruit trees were planted on either side of the broad 

 avenues opening through the extensive grounds in various direc- 

 tions. 



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

 landscape-garden plan survived. Neither of them harmonized with 

 the commercial idea of orcharding large production and economy 

 of cultivation, and both were soon abandoned. The only early plant- 

 ing of dwarf trees which now survives is the Block orchard of pears 

 at Santa Clara which will be mentioned in the chapter on that fruit. 



Irrigation Abandoned. The early abandonment of dwarf trees 

 suggests also the early abandonment of irrigation in the valleys of 

 Northern California as early as 1856. Facilities which had been 

 secured for irrigation of orchards were allowed to go unused, be- 

 cause it was thought better not to use them. One case is reported 

 in Napa county where means to furnish the orchard with thirty 

 thousand gallons of water per day were allowed to lie idle. The 

 substitution of cultivation for water, of course, attended this reform. 

 The announcement of a practice, in 1856, "to plow deep, dig wide 

 and deep holes for planting, and work the ground from February 

 to July, allowing no grass or weeds to grow among the trees," shows 

 that the thorough and clean culture, for which California became 

 famous, is an old idea. Even the abandonment of the plow, and 

 almost weekly use of the cultivator, was the practice of some grow- 



