CHAPTER XVI 

 COMMERCIAL FRUIT < VARIETIES 



In preparation for revision of this work and to serve also asso- 

 ciations of nurserymen and fruit growers who requested specific 

 information as to the relative standing of commercial varieties of 

 different fruits in the various states which participate in the over- 

 land fruit trade, the writer undertook a careful inquiry into the 

 present standing of varieties of the fruits chiefly grown in Cali- 

 fornia for commercial purposes. The objects in this inquiry were, 

 first, to secure exact data which would be of business advantage to 

 large propagators of fruit trees ; second, to make widely known 

 the particular requirements of California production and trade for 

 the information of originators of new varieties, which might pre- 

 serve, with improvements, types which ministered to specific oppor- 

 tunities and demands ; third, to enforce upon local planters the 

 conviction that their clearest path toward satisfactory income lies 

 in choosing varieties which have demonstrated two fundamental 

 characters, viz : adaptation to the locality and to the uses of the 

 fruit trade. 



It may surprise the casual reader to find that our production 

 proceeds so largely upon old standard varieties and that the striking 

 achievements of Mr. Burbank are not more prominent. Anyone, 

 however, who is acquainted with commercial fruit growing knows 

 that it is not possible to revolutionize an established and profitable 

 industry in less than a decade by the substitution of new varieties 

 for the old standards. It takes not less than half that period to 

 determine whether the new variety is really trustworthy and suit- 

 able, and it takes much longer to get a large acreage in bearing 

 either by grafting or new plantings because people are slow and 

 conservative in making changes. It is little more than thirteen 

 years since Burbank distributed the first grafts of "Wickson," the 

 first of his plums to make a deep impression upon the commercial 

 fruit growing of California. 



Another reason why new varieties do not figure more largely 

 in California fruit growing is the smallness of the amateur interest. 

 There is, in fact, almost an absence of pure amateurs enthusiastic, 

 critical, discriminating, athirst for novelties. Even suburban plant- 

 ers follow the lead of commercial orchardists and plant chiefly 

 that which has shown adaptations to local growing conditions, 

 and few are averse to making what they can by sale of small sur- 

 pluses. The result is that California fruit growing is almost 



219 



