LOCATIONS FOR THE APRICOT 245 



though the duration of such temperature may be very brief. For 

 this reason the area of California which is well suited to apricot 

 growing is limited when compared with the great area of the State, 

 though when counted by acres it is ample enough to supply all the 

 fresh canned and dried apricots which the markets of the world 

 can be expected to take at profitable figures. 



It is often claimed that situations directly subject to ocean 

 influences are best for the apricot. It is noted by many observers 

 that the apricot "points its best branches to the ocean, in the very 

 teeth of the constant breeze, and the landward limbs and twigs 

 bend up and endeavor to reach the same direction. This is patent 

 in every tree, and in the long orchard rows is very striking." This 

 is taken to signify the special liking of the tree for the vicinity of 

 the coast. It is well enough to interpret it that way, providing one 

 does not lose sight of the perfect success of the apricot in the in- 

 terior as well. It is true that the fruit near the coast attains higher 

 color, and the less rapid growth of the tree makes it somewhat 

 easier to handle, but the earlier ripening in the interior, coupled 

 with freedom from fog and constant sunshine for drying, are points 

 of the highest industrial importance. The fact is that the apricot 

 has a very wide range in California, and though the trees have 

 been cut out at some points it has been chiefly because too frosty 

 locations have been chosen or because some other fruit has seemed 

 to be locally more desirable, for one reason or another. 



In some valleys in the upper part of the State opening directly 

 to the ocean, there is sometimes complaint of the cracking of the 

 fruit on the sunny side. The alternation of sunshine and fog 

 seems to have something to do with this, for in favorable years, 

 when fogs are few, the fruit is sound. 



Locations for early ripening of the apricot are to be chosen 

 with reference to the influence of topography, as laid down in 

 Chapter I. In a general way, it may be said, in regions directly 

 subject to coast influences, both in northern and southern Cali- 

 fornia, the apricot is late. On the west side of the Sacramento 

 Valley, on slightly elevated places, in small, hill-locked valleys, 

 the earliest apricots have been grown for years. Protected situ- 

 ations in the foot-hills of the Sierra Nevada, on the eastern rim 

 of both the Sacramento and San Joaquin Valleys, share in the pro- 

 duction of the earliest ripening fruit. There is probably about a 

 month's difference in the ripening of the same variety in the earliest 

 interior situations and in the coast valleys of both northern and 

 southern California. 



In the interior of southern California, in irrigated situations, on 

 the west side of the Colorado River and in adjacent parts of Ari- 

 zona, apricots rival in earliness the product of the famous valleys 

 of interior northern California. 



