504 CALIFORNIA FRUITS: HOW TO GROW THEM 



several of the slat-bottom trays one upon another, placing around 

 them sides made of boards so as to hook together at the corners, 

 cover the top with a damp canvas, and burn the sulphur in a hole 

 in the ground below the bottom tray. 



Webster Treat, formerly a large grower of almonds, describes 

 his sulphuring-house for almonds : 



My bleaching-house is about twenty-five feet by eight feet, and I generally 

 put in about four thousand pounds of almonds and expose them to sulphur 

 fumes for three or four hours. The house is boarded with tongue and groove 

 flooring, inside and out, and roofed with well-laid shingles, and has a flue 

 about two feet high on the apex, to help draft the sulphur smoke up. The floor- 

 is of one-by-three-inch stuff, set up edgewise, three-eighths of an injj^ipart, 

 or just wide enough to admit the fumes from the sulphur burning j^^^fc and 

 narrow enough to prevent the nuts from falling through. The flog^H^bout 

 two and one-half feet above the ground, and the lower space is boffded up 

 with tongue and groove also and fitted with small doors every five feet, so that 

 the sulphur pans can be placed underneath the floor. 



Sulphur fumes are applied until the nuts are of a light yellow- 

 ish color; the proper shade is to be learned by securing approved 

 samples from some trustworthy dealer. 



The following explicit account of handling almonds on a large 

 scale is by Mr. J. P. Dargitz, of Acampo, San Joaquin county : 



"When, the hulls on the nuts are loose from the shell, as will 

 be indicated by their bursting open, it is time to begin gathering if 

 you wish to hull them. If they get too dry you wall have to wet 

 them before hulling or you will break the shells. If you wish to 

 shell them then, the drier they get the better. It will not pay to 

 begin until the nuts about the crotches of the trees are ready and 

 they will be the last to ripen. When they are all ready you can 

 get all at one gathering. Have some sheets made of heavy un- 

 'bleached sheeting or light duck or sail cloth.. Mine for large trees 

 are 15x30 feet, handled by two men to a sheet and two sheets to a 

 tree. Spread the sheets under the tree, one on each side, lapping 

 the edges where they join. Then the men take willow or bamboo 

 poles and by jarring the limbs cause the nuts to fall on the sheets. 

 Always strike the limb sideways, for if you strike a glancing blow 

 down the limb, you will reduce next year's crop. The object is to 

 get the nuts and disturb the foliage as little as possible. Of course, 

 you will get some nuts and twigs with the leaves anyway. When 

 the nuts are all off the tree, the men toss their poles to the next 

 tree and then gather up the sheets, one man at each end of each 

 sheet and, lifting them, carry them to the next tree where the pro- 

 cess is repeated. When enough nuts are in sheets to fill several 

 lug boxes, the boxes are placed on the ground side by side, and the 

 sheets are emptied of their burden. These boxes are then stacked 

 up so as to be easily seen, and the teamster gathers them up and 

 hauls them in to the shed where they are run through the huller 

 and then placed in the hoppers ready for the hand sorting. After 



