464 



CALIFORNIA FRUITS: HOW TO GROW THEM 



lemon which is allowed to mature on the tree is never good. Good 

 results can not be obtained, even by the best methods of keeping 

 lemons, unless the fruit is picked at the proper time and properly 

 handled. Mr. Teague says a lemon should be handled as carefully 

 as an egg. 



If gathered before the color begins to turn properly cured 

 lemons may be kept for months, and they will improve in market 

 qualities, by a thinning and toughening of the skin, and by increase 

 of juice contents. This curing of the fruit, as it is called, is 

 accomplished in many simple ways. If the fruit is gathered and 

 placed in piles under the trees, where, with low-headed trees, it 

 is completely shaded by the foliage, it processes well and comes 

 out beautiful in color and excellent in quality, providing it is a 

 good variety. Some have trusted wholly to this open-air curing 

 under the trees, merely protecting the fruit by a thin covering of 

 straw, or other light, dry materials. Others let the fruit lie a 

 few days under the trees, carefully shaded from the sun, and place 

 it in boxes or upon trays, and keep it months in a darkened fruit- 

 house, providing ventilation but guarding the fruit against draughts 

 of air. Gathering the fruit while still green and packing with alter- 

 nate layers of dry sand, has given excellent marketable fruit, but 

 of course the handling of so much sand is too expensive nor is it 

 at all necessary. 



Much attention has been given to lemon storage in 'southern 

 California, and many curing and storage houses have been con- 

 structed. Naturally there is great variation in design and method 

 of operation. The essential conditions to be secured are exclusion 

 of light; regulation of temperature; ample ventilation, under con- 

 trol, however, so as to prevent entrance of air which is too dry or 

 too hot; convenience and cheapness of handling, for the lemon is 

 expensive in handling at best during the months of storage which 

 is often desirable. Some of these conditions are relatively of much 

 more importance in the interior than in the coast region, because 

 heat and dry air reach occasionally extremes which are not ex- 

 perienced near the ocean which is a great regulator of temperature 

 and atmospheric moisture. For these reasons a much simpler 

 system of storage is now in large use in the coast district, while 

 in the interior suitable special buildings or basements are appar- 

 ently necessary. Anyone entering upon lemon handling should 

 certainly visit establishments now in satisfactory use and learn by 

 careful observation of their suitability to his purposes. 



Near the coast, and so far toward the interior as ocean influ- 

 ences extend in adequate degree, the building of special curing 

 houses has been abandoned and some quite expensive structures 

 have been turned to other uses. An objection to house-storage 

 lies in the fact that the fruit is apt to be massed in the house and 

 that which is just picked given the same ventilation as that which 



