52 CALIFORNIA FRUITS: HOW TO GROW THEM 



Several acres were set apart for an ornamental fruit orchard, the trees 

 and shrubs being so arranged as to present a unique landscape garden, 

 nearly every article in which is productive of fruit. The arrangement of 

 the fruit trees is peculiar, a large portion of them being set on either side 

 of the broad avenues opening through the extensive grounds in various 

 directions, imparting to the whole an air of picturesque beauty seldom 

 seen. 



But neither the narrow dwarf-tree garden plan nor the broad 

 landscape-garden plan has survived. Neither of them harmonized 

 with the commercial idea of orcharding large production and 

 economy of cultivation, and both are now but curiosities of the 

 early horticulture of California. 



Irrigation Abandoned. The early abandonment of dwarf trees 

 suggests also the early abandonment of irrigation in the valleys of 

 Northern California as early as 1856. Facilities which had been 

 secured for irrigation of orchards were allowed to go unused, 

 because it was seen that it was better not to use them. One case 

 is reported in Napa county where means to furnish the orchard 

 with thirty thousand gallons of water per day were allowed 

 to lie idle. The substitution of cultivation for water, of 

 course, attended this reform. The announcement of a prac- 

 tice ; in 1856, "to plow deep, dig wide and deep holes for plant- 

 ing, and work the ground from February to July, allowing no grass 

 or weeds to grow among the trees," shows that the thorough and 

 clean culture, for which California is famous, is not a recent idea 

 in our practice. Even the abandonment of the plow, and almost 

 weekly use of the cultivator, was the practice of some growers in 

 the San Jose district before 1860. In fact, the descriptions of orchard 

 management in that day include nearly the whole variety of meth- 

 ods which now prevail. The experience of the two decades has 

 shown that irrigation facilities are more valuable even for deciduous 

 fruits than was once thought possible. This proposition will be 

 discussed in the chapter on irrigation. 



Early Wisdom and Enterprise. It is evident to anyone who 

 studies the records, that California was very fortunate in numbering 

 among the early settlers so many men with horticultural tastes, skill, 

 and experience. The rapidity with which fruit trees were multi- 

 plied, and the confidence with which these early comers entered 

 upon the nursery business, shows their training. Although there 

 were many trees brought here from the East and from Europe, they 

 constituted only a very small percentage of the plantings of the 

 first few years, but the orchards, with the exception of a very small 

 number of trees introduced to furnish grafting and budding stock, 

 were the product of the soil. When this is borne in mind, it becomes 

 all the more wonderful how so much could be done in a new 

 country, in a distant part of the world, in so very short a time. It 

 was an observation which was put upon record as early as 1856, 



