240 RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 



In the Califorman orchards the fruit trees are trained low, 

 the lower limbs being within a foot, or at most two feet, of the 

 ground. Men, therefore, do not walk under the trees in an 

 orchard, or climb after the fruit. One fruit tree in a hundred 

 may be trained high, not more. The advantages of low train- 

 ing are, .that the trees bear fruit earlier ; the trunk is shaded, 

 and protected against the disease called the sun-scald ; the 

 earth about the roots is kept moist ; and the trees are protected 

 against the wind. 



The trees are planted from one-sixth to one-half nearer to- 

 gether in the orchards than in the Eastern States. This is an 

 additional protection against sun and wind. The ground is 

 ploughed several times every summer, and kept clean ; whereas 

 in the Eastern orchards it is common to sow grass or cultivate 

 vegetables. Our apple trees are free from the borers after the 

 first year, and our plum and cherry trees from the curculio, 

 though the plum suffers from the aphis, or louse. 



Fruit trees in California are generally as large at two years 

 old as they are in New York at three and four years. The in- 

 stances of unusually rapid growth here are without parallel 

 elsewhere. Cherry trees have grown to be fourteen feet high 

 in one year ; pear trees ten feet high ; peach trees to have 

 trunks from two to three inches in diameter. These were all 

 from buds on yearling stocks, and were well provided with 

 branches not trimmed to gain height. These specimens of 

 rapid growth were observed on an island near the junction of 

 the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers. At Petal uma, a 

 cherry tree two years old from the graft, and three from the 

 seed, had a trunk seven inches and three-quarters round ; a 

 plum tree, three years from the seed, was eleven feet high, and 

 had a trunk seven inches in circumference ; and a peach tree, 

 one year from the bud, was eight feet high and eight and a 

 half inches round. 



Mr. E. B. Crocker, of Sacramento, wrote thus in December, 

 1858 : " In January, 1855, 1 planted a small almond tree, 



