448 CALIFORNIA FRUIT SOCIETIP:S. 



pound. Of course at such cost it was only taken, first, as a 

 curiosity, and later as a luxury, by the few who could afford 

 it. In 1894 this trade had increased to over seven thousand 

 car-loads, at a freight rate of one and one-fourth cents a 

 pound; the citrus shipments from southern California, with 

 like beginnings, increased to over 14,000 car-loads in 1897-98. 

 The rainless summers and autumns of California permit all 

 classes of fruit — except on the seacoast— to be dried in the 

 sun, at a minimum of expense, and with excellent results. 

 Many varieties flourish there which will not thrive in other 

 parts of the country, or which have not been elsewhere intro- 

 duced; and the excellent^ quality of the fruit insured, under 

 the exceptional climatic conditions, a product which had no 

 equal of its kind in the market. Most parts of the state were 

 found excellently adapted to prunes, and while at first they 

 were not looked upon favorably, they soon found general 

 acceptance with a ready sale, and a market at eight to ten 

 cents a pound seemed assured for all that were produced. 

 This price, with the yield obtained on the best land, involved 

 enormous profits,but under the increasing production, it rapidly 

 run down to four or five cents, which, with some orchards, 

 was then thought to involve a loss; and it has since declined 

 to three to three and one-half cents. The total annual con- 

 sumption of the country, up to 1888, had never exceeded 

 ninety million pounds, nearly all imported, while in 1894 

 there were trees planted in California alone sufficient, theo- 

 retically, to produce, when in full bearing, two hundred mil- 

 lion pounds in a good year, which must be sold against foreign 

 prunes, upon which the combined freight and duty but little 

 exceeded the freight east on the California product. The 

 raisin industry was subjected, for a long time, to even worse 

 conditions, the Zante currants, which specially compete with 

 the poorer class of raisins, being admitted duty free. The 

 world-wide advertisement of the enormously exaggerated 

 profits of the fruit industry of California, which was pro- 

 moted by the land and transportation interests of the state, 

 and fostered by the bragging spirit which the very air of 

 California induces in all her people, sot all the world at work at 



