CHAPTER XXXI 



THE FIG 



The fig is, perhaps, the grandest fruit tree of California. Its 

 majestic size and its symmetry make it a crowning feature of the 

 landscape, and its dense foliage renders the wide space embowered 

 by it a harbor of refuge from mid-summer heat. Measurements 

 of large trees are abundant, for old trees are numerous in the in- 

 terior of the State, both in the valley and on the slopes of the Sierra 

 foothills. At Knight's Ferry, in Stanislaus County, on the place 

 of Mr. T. Roebuck, there is a fig tree sixty feet in height, with 

 branches of such length as to shade a circle seventy-seven feet in 

 diameter. The trunk is twelve feet two inches around. A little 

 higher the trunk divides into seven or eight large branches, each 

 of which is nearly five feet in circumference. At thirty feet from 

 the ground the limbs are seven and eight inches through. Perhaps 

 the largest girth of a fig tree is that of a tree sixty-eight years old 

 on the Charles O'Neil place near Oroville which is eighteen feet 

 around the trunk, while the oldest tree is probably the one on the 

 Curtner place near Warm Springs in southern Alameda County 

 which is reported to be 125 years old, with a trunk girth of seven- 

 teen feet a survivor of mission planting. 



Groves of massive black fig trees, which, though set sixty feet 

 apart, mingle their branches overhead and form a network through 

 which, in the summer, hardly a beam of light can pass, are fre- 

 quently seen in the older settled parts of the State. Perhaps the 

 most interesting single fig tree is that on Rancho Chico, quite near 

 the residence of General Bidwell. It was planted in 1856. One 

 foot above the ground the trunk measures eleven feet in circum- 

 ference ; the wide-spreading branches have been trained toward the 

 ground and, taking root there, banyan-like, they form a wonderful 

 enclosure over one hundred and fifty feet in diameter. 



The crop on these large trees is proportionate to their size and, 

 entering their area in the morning during the ripening season, one 

 can scarcely step without crushing figs, though the fruit may be 

 gathered up each day and placed in the sun for drying. All these 

 famous old trees are of the black, Mission variety. One such tree 

 owned by John Wolfson of Merced is reported to have produced 

 "one thousands pounds of dried figs" in 1918. This tree is eleven 

 feet around four feet above the ground, with a spread of sixty feet. 



Realization of a Fig Industry. Although there was the demon- 

 stration of California's adaptation to fig growing always before 

 them in these grand old trees and although the subject was con- 

 tinually under investigation and effort for half a century, the real 

 push for a great fig industry was not made until the war excluded 

 the Smyrna figs and during the years following a great push was 

 made in fig planting in the San Joaquin Valley to realize the pio- 



