WHERE CALIFORNIA APPLES GROW 199 



ing orchards at an elevation of about four thousand five hundred 

 feet on the slopes of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, and from two 

 thousand to three thousand five hundred feet is commonly regarded 

 the best apple region of the mountains. The trees attain larger 

 size and bear heavily, and the fruit, of well-adapted varieties, is 

 large, crisp, juicy and has exceptional keeping qualities. This 

 district, which is practically as long as the State, is still awaiting 

 development in commercial apple production. 



Along the coast the apple succeeds well from end to end of the 

 State, and very close to the ocean excellent fruit is produced on 

 good soil usually without irrigation but sometimes advantaged by 

 it. In this coast region are situated the chief commercial apple 

 districts of the State. Named in the order of their acreage in 1920 

 they are as follows : Santa Cruz and Monterey counties (Watson- 

 ville district) ; Sonoma (Sebastopol district) ; Lake Mendocino and 

 Humboldt counties (Upper Coast district). As the coast is not 

 an early region, the product is almost exclusively fall and winter 

 apples. 



There is a certain advantage in elevation in the coast region as 

 well as in the interior, but the advantage is not so marked nor is the 

 required elevation so great. Coast valleys in the central and upper 

 portion of the State, where the soil is suitable, produce most excel- 

 lent apples, but even here the lower hillsides, with deep, well- 

 drained soils, are, perhaps, preferable to the floors of the valley. 

 Departing from immediate coast influences and approaching the 

 interior, with its greater heat and aridity, the greater elevation 

 becomes desirable. The apple, excepting the very early varieties, 

 does not relish the forcing heat which brings such perfection to the 

 peach, but to insure late ripening and long keeping, with accom- 

 panying crispness, juiciness, and flavor, it must have atmospheric 

 surroundings which favor slower development. 



Localities for apple growing in Southern California are to be 

 chosen with much the same rules as in the upper part of the State. 

 As has already been said, valleys in which coast conditions largely 

 predominate produce good apples, on suitable soils, but away from 

 the coast, proper elevations must be sought, and they should be 

 above the so-called thermal or frostless belts. Good apples are 

 grown on low lands near the coast in Los Angeles and Orange 

 Counties. Sixty miles inland, in San Bernardino and Riverside 

 counties, winter apples fail in the valleys, but are most excellent 

 at a sufficient elevation upon the slopes of the surrounding moun- 

 tains or in elevated valleys like the Yucaipa Valley above Redlands, 

 where a Rome Beauty of excellent quality was grown in 1903 to a 

 weight of twenty-seven ounces and a circumference of fifteen inches. 

 This, however, is not "the record" in apple size for the writer re- 

 ceived a Bietigheimer from Napa in 1921 which weighed twenty- 

 eight ounces and had a circumference of sixteen inches! In the 

 elevated interior of San Diego County, as in the Julian and Smith 

 Mountain districts and in the San Jacinto region of Riverside 

 county, excellent apples are produced in large quantities and profit- 

 ably carried long distances. 



