170 RURAL CALIFORNIA 



mercial promotion of fruit-growing will be discussed 

 in Chapter VII, because the results were the outcome 

 of a general ambition of farmers to do their own 

 business and the success of fruit-growers acted as 

 an incentive to groups of other farmers toward that 

 achievement. There were, however, forms of organ- 

 ization strictly internal in their activities and ex- 

 clusive in their service to fruit-growing which ex- 

 erted very marked influence. During the first three 

 decades they consisted of fruit-growers, local socie- 

 ties and clubs which were ephemeral but rendered 

 important service, especially in the line of disseminat- 

 ing cultural information. They were also instru- 

 mental in the attainment of more systematic under- 

 takings on rather broader lines, of which several will 

 be sketched. 



Very specific in their work and very influential 

 were the "Citrus Fairs" beginning at Eiverside in 

 1879 which unified people in sympathy and purpose 

 and taught the motley collection of reformed sheep 

 farmers, teachers, lawyers, doctors and tired busi- 

 ness men, who largely comprised the early citrus 

 colonists, the difference between an orange and a 

 gourd and that girth and weight were not the chiefly 

 valuable characters of a lemon. These citrus fairs 

 were intensely educational. It is impossible for any- 

 one who did not participate in them to realize how 

 intense they were. No one knew which was the best 

 orange and the best lemon to plant except an ex- 

 hibitor and, if he had buds or young trees to sell, 

 he had no doubts about it. When the question of the 



