CHAPTER XXXIV 



THE LEMON, LIME AND CITRON 



Lemon growing is a very unique and distinctive branch of Cali- 

 fornia horticulture, which in the present advancement of culture 

 and preparation for the market well illustrates the originality and 

 invention which the California fruit grower has displayed in his 

 undertakings. Lemon growing in California is old because it rose 

 at the old missions in the second century back of us, but successful 

 lemon growing as a great industry is new and constantly assuming 

 new phases. For the old seedling lemons were bad, and though 

 enterprising growers soon learned that fact and set about getting 

 better ones, it took years to secure them and to learn how to grow 

 and handle them so that the Californian could compete with the 

 Sicilian fruit in the markets of the United States. Nor was time 

 the only thing sacrificed hundreds of thousands of dollars were 

 lost before the California grower could put upon the market a good 

 lemon, fit to stay good for a sufficient length of time. Unprofitable 

 plantings ; expensive curing houses, which did not cure well ; count- 

 less experiments which yielded only loss and disappointment all 

 these are wrecks upon the rock of American lemon growing. And 

 that is equivalent to saying California lemon growing, for there 

 are no lemons commercially produced elsewhere in this country. 



Naturally Californians sought first to know how lemons were 

 grown and handled abroad. At cost of great effort and outlay they 

 learned practically nothing that they could do and a great deal that 

 it was not necessary to do. Then they assumed a more rational 

 mood a disposition to discern what principles are involved in the 

 problem, and to apply them in their own way according to con- 

 ditions locally prevailing. Along this line grand success has been 

 attained by a few masterful men conducting large lemon enter- 

 prises or smaller undertakings of their own, while the mass of 

 lemon planters, for one reason or another, have never reaped the 

 reward they expected. On the whole, it may be said that lemon 

 growing is a much harder and more exacting enterprise than orange 

 growing, and for this reason many have new-topped their trees to 

 oranges and thus escaped difficulties which they could not over- 

 come. 



With the aid of the protective tariff the most resolute and 

 capable have attained success, and the California lemon became 

 known and highly esteemed upon its merits everywhere. The tariff 

 has somewhat offset cheap labor in Italy and cheap water transpor- 

 tation from the Mediterranean region, and our lemons could some- 

 times compete with the foreign product not only in the West but 

 even in the cities of the Atlantic seaboard. All this has been ac- 

 complished within two decades and it is a notable result. But the 

 California contention that the lemon should be encouraged with 



