200 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



is foredoomed to failure. If they can not break through the law 

 they will get behind the law. The first duty of the legislator is 

 to take account of the natural forces with which he must contend, 

 and the classical economists have made a survey and estimate of 

 these forces which, based as it is on the facts of human nature 

 and the experience of nations, it would be willful folly to overlook. 



THE FRUIT INDUSTRY IN CALIFORNIA. 



BY CHARLES HOWARD SHINN. 



TT seems to me that an account of the present condition of the 

 -L fruit industry in California would be of economic value, pro- 

 vided that it were entirely free from the advertising element. By 

 the " advertising element " I mean that very natural and almost 

 irrepressible desire of a resident of any portion of this magnificent 

 country to attract others to his particular district. There ought 

 to be some way of presenting statistical and other facts relating 

 to one department of horticulture in a given American State, in 

 exactly the same spirit that an expert upon cotton manufacture 

 would arrange the statistics of the mills of Massachusetts. 



A considerable area of California lands is planted to orchards 

 and vineyards. Some of these, as with other human enterprises, 

 are profitable, and some are unprofitable ; but all are producing 

 fruit, most of which finds its way in some shape to markets out- 

 side the State. The range of these fruit products is very great, 

 and many American producers, as well as those of Europe and 

 other parts of the world, feel the competition of this food supply. 

 An immense number of consumers, as well as this army of rival 

 producers, must wish to obtain statistics of the California in- 

 dustry under consideration. The following article is an attempt 

 to present the facts of a great fruit-growing industry so plainly 

 that all its departments can be understood by the reader. 



First, let us examine the best available statistics of the area 

 planted, and the kinds of fruit used. These are much more com- 

 plete now than when the officers of the last national census at- 

 tempted to collect them from county officials, because competent 

 agents of the State Board of Horticulture, themselves fruit- 

 growers, spent the greater part of last year in making a " house- 

 to-house canvass." They asked every man who owned an orchard 

 to write down the number of acres he had in fruit trees, and 

 classified the result, in many cases, by actual inspection of the 

 orchard. The mass of details is of course too ponderous to be 

 printed here, but the results can be analyzed so as to justify 

 presentation in a series of tables. There are several ways of pos- 



