96 ORANGE CULTURE IN CALIFORNIA. 



all business enterprises: Will it pay? I believe it will pay, 

 and in support of this belief I shall proceed to give some data 

 in proof of my assertion. An orange grove in full bearing in 

 Los Angeles county can scarcely be purchased at any price. 

 While nearly all kinds of property, over all our country, have 

 perceptibly depreciated under the pressure of hard times, the 

 value of orange groves remains firm and unchanged. No one 

 wishes to sell an orange grove; few are able to buy; it takes a 

 fortune to piirchase one. An orchard grove is a bank in which 

 deposits are safe beyond question, and whose dividends are 

 regular, munificent, and we may say princely." 



The income from an orange grove is the result of safe, ju- 

 dicious, honorable and ennobling investmeut ; it is continuous 

 in its operations, resting neither day nor night. The crop is 

 seldom, if ever, a complete failure; the fruit is always in de- 

 mand at remunerative prices. 



TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 



Up to the present time I have had no reason to change my 

 mind. We see from the above that a ten-acre orchard, which 

 all that try can secure, is a fortune, and that it places a family 

 in independent circumstances. 



Ten acres of budded trees nine years old will return an in- 

 come, at the foregoing nominal prices, on the gross sum of five 

 thousand four hundred and forty-five dollars per acre, the trees 

 being set in the regular order and twenty feet apart each way; 

 or, if seedlings be preferred and set twenty-four feet apart, 

 nearly three thousand eight hundred dollars per acre, at eleven 

 or twelve years old. 



To the orchardist who does his own work, which he can do 

 and still have time enough for social and mental culture, one or 

 the other of the above sums would be received by him for his 

 labor. 



This shows conclusively that orange growing in California is 

 a very lucrative business. Even if the yield be only five hun- 

 dred per tree, instead of one thousand, their income will be 

 ample. Who of our farmers makes one-half of either of the 

 above sums, without hired help, as can be done in the pleasant 



