of Eastern markets and free planting yielded volumes of fruit of which 

 shipments late in the seventies yielded growers little or nothing, and wrecked 

 houses which gambled in fruit, with high freight rates, slow movement and 

 poor cars all against them. Various causes brought new confidence and a 

 passion for planting early in the eighties, the booming expectations there- 

 IProm being largely thwarted by the general depression of the early part 

 of the next decade. For the last ten years, however, the course of fruit 

 affairs has been steadily upward. Unceasing efforts for wider distribution 

 through distant consuming states and countries, constant struggle for 

 cheaper and better transportation and sale; organization and correlation 

 of growers' and dealers' interests to obviate competition in glutted markets; 

 the use of larger capital and better system in preparing and pushing pre- 

 served fruit products of all kinds — all these, combined with the actual awak- 

 ening of the world to the desirability of the products, give fruit planters, 

 preservers and dealers more confidence in the outlook to-day than they 

 have had since large scale operations began. Though the fruits and fruit 

 products have attained a total annual value of something like sixty mil- 

 lions of dollars no limitation of advancement is yet discernible. 



Each of the fruits which have become commercially great in California 

 has its own local history which will some day be written. Every one of 

 them had its own rate and method of progress, its own disappointments 

 and surprises, and each to-day offers its beauties and values as tributes to 

 the memories of men and women in the last generation of Californians who 

 foresaw the future and whose labors made its realization possible. The 

 writer had the advantage of being a young man when the horticultural 

 heroes of the last three decades began to lay the foundations upon which 

 the present horticultural greatness of California rests, and enjoyed personal 

 acquaintance with most of them. He cherishes the plan of closing his own 

 life with an effort to transmit the record of their ambitions, their struggles 

 and their successes to coming generations of Californian devotees to horti- 

 culture. The interest in such an undertaking will depend upon the place 

 which horticulture will occupy in the future development of the State. 



The outlook for California fruits and fruit products involves considera- 

 tions of much economic interest. California's exports of horticultural food 

 supplies to north European countries are likely to reach values as great 

 as we ever secured for wheat and barley in that part of the world. Besides 

 the development of adjacent territory on the American continent and other 

 Pacific countries may shape the future of California as a fruit producing 

 State in a way which can at present only be dreamed about. It should be 

 remembered that California has a unique character from a horticultural point 

 of view. Not only does the State have a monopoly of semi-tropical condi- 

 tions of the United States (excepting parts of Florida and Arizona), but 

 California has command of the whole of northwest America and the whole 

 of northeast Asia, not only in the supply of semi-tropical fruits, but In 

 early ripening of hardy fruits as well. California does not grow tropical 

 fruits; they must come from the islands and the tropical south coast coun- 

 tries. Semi-tropical fruits are, however, vastly more important in com- 

 merce than tropical, and a region which successfully combines northern 

 orchard fruits with the whole semi-tropical class commands the fruit trade 

 of all accessible populous regions which have limited fruit capabilities. 



Prophets far-seeing in the world courses declare that the Pacific Ocean 

 is to be the arena for commerce greater than the world has yet seen, and 

 Pacific Coast countries are to contain the greater part of the world's popu- 

 lation. This greatest quarto-sphere with its superlative opportunities and 

 activities will have California as its treasure house of fruits and fruit prod- 

 ucts. During the winter the citrus fruits will afford tonic and refreshment, 

 and before hardy fruits bloom in northern climes the same fruits will appear 

 from the early ripening districts of California. In this traffic California will 

 not only be practically without a competitor, but, sitting beside the sea, 

 there will also be every advantage of water transportation and the sustain- 

 ing ocean temperatures for the fruits in transit. California dried and canned 



