10 CALIFORNIA FRUITS: HOW TO GROW THEM 



tions and includes within her area the adaptations of the whole 

 country, with some which no other State possesses. 



But while this horticultural scope is claimed for the State as a 

 whole, it is necessary to add that local adaptations within the State 

 must be very narrowly drawn. Our greatest failures have followed 

 ill choice of location for the purpose intended. Whenever certain 

 California fruits have been ill spoken of, they have been produced 

 in the wrong places, or by ill-advised methods. It is possible, 

 then, to produce both poor and perfect fruit of a given kind. It 

 may be said this can be done anywhere by the extremes of culture 

 and neglect, but to this proposition it must be added that in Cali- 

 fornia equally excellent methods and care may produce perfection 

 in one place and the opposite in another. One who seeks to know 

 California well must undertake to master both its horticultural 

 greatness and littleness; and so closely are these associated, and 

 so narrow the belts of special adaptations, that there are many 

 counties which have a range of products nearly as great as the 

 State itself. 



It is hard for the stranger to realize this. It is difficult for 

 him to believe that the terms "northern" and "southern" have 

 almost no horticultural significance in California; that northern 

 fruits reach perfection, under proper conditions, at the south, and 

 vice versa; that some regions of greatest rainfall have to irrigate 

 most frequently; that some of greatest heat have sharpest valley 

 frosts; that some fruits can be successfully grown through a north 

 and south distance of 500 miles, but can not be successfully carried 

 a few hundred feet of either less or greater elevation ; that on the 

 same parallel of latitude within a hundred miles of distance, from 

 coast to mountainside, one can continuously gather marketable 

 Bartlett pears for three months not to mention the second crop, 

 which is often of account on the same trees in the same season. 



Through the multitude of local observations, which seem per- 

 plexing and almost contradictory, it is possible to clearly discern 

 certain general conditions, of both nature and culture, which may 

 be briefly advanced as characteristically and distinctively 

 Californian. 



The climate of the Pacific Coast is described by the meteor- 

 ologist as "insular or moderate," as contrasted with the "continental 

 or excessive" climate of the regions east of the Sierra Nevada. The 

 west coast of Europe is also insular in its climate. The northern 

 limit of an annual mean temperature of 50 degrees Fahr. is 50 

 degrees and 47 degrees of north latitude on western coasts of 

 Europe and America respectively. But though there is this 

 similarity in mean annual temperature, there is a decided advantage 

 pertaining to our climate over that of west Europe in that our 

 range of temperature is less ; that is, extremes of heat and cold are 

 nearer together, and changes are therefore much less excessive. 



