AND WINE MAKING. 279 



Golden Chasselas and Sweetwater. The Emperor, a late 

 grape of handsome purple color, and Black Morocco, with 

 the Cornuchon, are also shipped to some extent. I hear 

 of contracts made for whole vineyards of these varieties, 

 at from sixty to sixty-five dollars per ton, the buyer paying 

 freight. They are generally packed in boxes of twenty-five 

 pounds each, and the same directions for packing given 

 in the first part of this volume will apply here. 



CHAPTER LIV. 



RAISIN MAKING. 



The making of raisins is a business assuming vast 

 proportions, and California raisins seem to find a ready 

 sale at remunerative prices, when well handled and cured. 

 Many engage in this branch of grape culture, who have 

 concientious scruples against making wine, and even 

 ladies have resorted to it as a pleasant and profitable 

 means of support. Miss M. F. Austin, a maiden lady, is 

 manager of the Hedgerow vineyard, near Fresno, and 

 cultivates thirty acres of grapes for making raisins. Messrs. 

 Briggs Bros, have several hundred acres near Davisville 

 and Woodland, Yolo Co., exclusively in raisin grapes, 

 mostly in Muscats, Muscatella and G-ordo Blanco. The 

 Muscats are vines of very peculiar growth, branching close 

 to or from the ground, and have very stocky, short-jointed 

 wood, and they are generally grown very low, most of the 

 branches resting on the ground. The seedless grapes, of 

 which the Sultana is the most prominent and promising, 

 require long pruning to produce well. The White 

 Corinth, smaller than the Sultana, has been grown in this 

 State with varying success; the general impression being 

 that it is not sufficiently productive. Very fine samples of 

 the dried fruit and the grapes of both this and the Sul- 

 tana were shown at the last Viticultural Convention, and 



