430 CALIFORNIA FRUITS: HOW TO GROW THEM 



Fifth : It is but a corollary of the foregoing that the successful 

 and profitable production of citrus fruits is par excellence the 

 motive force in promoting colony efforts and in drawing into hor- 

 ticulture the class of people which constitutes the most desirable 

 element in the upbuilding of a great State people who know what 

 is noble and desirable in human life and desire it for their children ; 

 people who know how to secure what their aspirations and tastes 

 approve; people who by intellectual force and training and by suc- 

 cessful professional and industrial experience are prepared for at- 

 tainment in the higher horticultural arts and in the new commer- 

 cial efforts which make those arts profitable. The splendid devel- 

 opment of southern California communities upon a horticultural 

 basis points the way to achievements in other suitable parts of the 

 State, and the citrus fruits become then the token, not alone of 

 superior natural endowments, but of the type of manhood which 

 can use them to the best advantage. None know this better than 

 the southern California people themselves, and it is a demonstra- 

 tion of the desirability both of the natural resources of northerr 

 California in citrus lines and of citrus fruit culture itself, that in 

 all the newer citrus regions at the north, there are to be found 

 among the leading planters and promoters, southern Californians 

 who have sold their early plantings at the south at high prices to 

 newer comers and have started anew in the northern districts, 

 where they find cheaper land, more abundant water supply and 

 fruit which is marketed at an earlier date. 



DISTRIBUTION OF CITRUS CONDITIONS IN 

 CALIFORNIA 



The claim has been made above that citrus culture conditions 

 .exist in suitable situations in central and northern California from 

 Shasta to San Diego county, and historical evidence has been cited 

 to prove it. It is so surprising that practically the same climate 

 should be found through a distance of between seven and eigh 1 . 

 degrees of latitude that many, even of those who have lived in 

 California, do not appreciate the fact, nor know the explanation of 

 it. An effort is made toward such explanation in Chapter I of this 

 work. Even at the risk of repetition the subject will be reviewed 

 with special reference to the occurrence of conditions affecting the 

 growth of citrus fruits. 



First: California is not only blessed with benign ocean influ- 

 ences, but northern California is additionally protected from low 

 winter temperatures by the mountain barrier of the Sierra Nevada, 

 extending southward from the multiplied masses of protecting 

 elevations in the Shasta region, while southern California enjoys 

 the protection of the Sierra Madre and other uplifts on the north 



