272 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



at Sacramento, and two of them loaded with Bartlett pears, ten 

 tons each, came over with us on our train, July 28, hound East. 

 We hrought some liartlctts home, which remained in good con- 

 dition three weelvs on the way from the time of picking. 



Fruits keep without rotting much longer on the trees and 

 vines in California than with us. The fig is produced in great 

 abundance and of excellent quality in many parts of the country ; 

 indeed, we saw it fruiting heavily along the roadside on trees 

 only five years old. In Putah Creek, one of the earliest and 

 warmest locations, the fig comes to great perfection. The trees 

 of one grove, only sixteen years old, are twenty-five feet high by 

 forty or fifty broad, and they now cover the ground. Ilere the 

 fig bears three crops in a year. One grove of four acres produced 

 nine tons of dried figs, and were sold at 8-00 per ton, or ten 

 cents per pound, and this was the second crop, the first having 

 yielded equally large. When the process of drying becomes 

 well understood, as it will shortly, the fig culture must become 

 a source of great profit, and will, I think, rank among the most 

 profitable fruits. At present much of the crop is lost every 

 year. In a country where fruits can be grown so cheaply, modes 

 of profitable consumption will soon suggest themselves. 



For drying fruit, California is superior to most other countries 

 in the world. As a general rule, the fruits arc superior to ours 

 in size and beauty, generally sweeter, but not superior in flavor. 

 With a few exceptions, the cherries, apricots, as well as the 

 early pears, are as fine as any raised in any country. The de- 

 ficiency in flavor, if this exists, may be owing to the unripe con- 

 dition of the fruit by premature picking and improper ripening. 

 The early fruits, not of overgrown size, are usually of better 

 quality, and not so fibrous and mealy as those of autumn. But 

 we are unable to say how far tlic want of flavor is owing to 

 improper treatment. In the case of strawberries, the best 

 varieties have not yet been adopted by the market growers, and 

 with the exception of the currant, none of the small fruits are as 

 good as ours. The grapes are almost exclusively what we call 

 foreign varieties. Wild native grapes abound in all the wooded 

 parts of the State, but they arc very different in character from 

 our grapes of the East. American grapes have been tested, but, 

 as far as we could ascertain, with unfavorable results ; this, 



