AGRICULTURAL INDUSTRIES 183 



ceptable variety which permits no intruders while 

 it is in season. Later pears are little grown al- 

 though a few shippers are doing well with winter 

 varieties. 



The choicest varieties of the European plum are 

 hardy in California. Growers do not need to cir- 

 cumvent the curculio and the black-knot for these 

 have never appeared in the State. The French 

 prunes were introduced at an early day and the prod- 

 uct has won its way by displacing European prunes 

 in American markets, has outgrown the require- 

 ments of the United States and is being largely sold 

 in Europe, even in France itself. California has in- 

 vented new methods of handling prunes by machinery 

 and other labor-saving recourses and has endeavored 

 by human devices to contribute to economy of pro- 

 duction to which nature contributes free sunshine 

 and dry air. Probably nowhere can so rich and de- 

 licious a fruit food as the California prune be so 

 cheaply produced and it is warranted to expect that 

 the world will need all that can be grown if or- 

 ganization for distribution and trade is continued. 

 The largest prune-producing valley is Santa Clara 

 (which has nearly two-thirds of all the prune trees in 

 the State) ; other coast valleys and the great interior 

 valley participating in the production of the other 

 third of the crop. 



Of plums, aside from varieties that are dried with- 

 out removal of the pit (and therefore called prunes), 

 the production is largely restricted to the Japanese 

 and a few European varieties which are particularlv 



