THE FRUIT INDUSTRY IN CALIFORNIA. 213 



the present output can be indefinitely increased. It is believed 

 by the best horticultural authorities that fruit, in various forms, 

 will become more and more a great food staple, used by the masses 

 of the people, and that new markets for the enormous output can 

 be developed from time to time in the United States and in Europe. 

 Like wheat, a staple, fruit in the future will not make fortunes 

 nor "pay for a ranch in one year," but will give safe, steady re- 

 turns upon the labor and capital invested. 



The extensive area that might be devoted to fruit culture, if 

 the demand justified such a use, can be seen by the following 

 figures : San Bernardino, Riverside, San Diego, and Los Angeles 

 Counties, all noted for their semitropic fruits, contain 26,913,000 

 acres, or in round numbers one fourth the area of the State. 

 Fresno, Kern, and Tulare, the great irrigated counties of the San 

 Joaquin Valley, famous for their vineyards and deciduous fruit 

 orchards, contain 14,737,000 acres. The rich and beautiful fruit 

 counties of Alameda, Butte, Placer, Sacramento, Santa Clara, 

 Solano, Sonoma, and Ventura, added to the above, bring the total 

 area to nearly 50,000,000 acres. It need not be supposed that all 

 these immense districts can be cultivated. There are deserts and 

 barren mountains, as well as fertile valleys, plains, and hillsides. 

 But if only one third of the area of these counties is capable of 

 being cultivated, and if only one third of the cultivated acreage 

 is used for fruits, these counties alone can produce, when their 

 orchards are in full bearing, twenty times as much fruit as the 

 present entire yield of the State. The future of the fruit indus- 

 try of California depends upon the growth of the demand for 

 fruit products. All the other conditions are favorable for the 

 development of the business, but the problem of the possible 

 demand can only be solved by continuing to plant trees, gather 

 fruit, and send it to the markets of the world. 



The picturesque side of California fruit-growing is very attract- 

 ive and must long remain so. Just now everything is in the 

 creative stage : vineyards and orchards are being extended along 

 the valleys and up the slopes ; the cabins of pioneers are giving 

 place to modern cottages and stately dwellings ; villages are fast 

 becoming towns ; and towns are rising to the rank of cities. Only 

 about the old missions can one find orchards that deserve to be 

 called venerable, as measured by European standards. Take out 

 -a few old trees of olive, fig, orange, and pear, and all that is left 

 are less than forty years old. 



Blossoming springtime in these great orchards is charming, 

 as almonds, apricots, peaches, and all the rest of the deciduous 

 fruit trees come into flower over square miles. The very road- 

 sides are sometimes covered with drifts of petals blown from the 

 overhanging boughs. Loquats ripen and are fit to market almost 



