506 CALIFORNIA FRUIT SOCIETIES. 



any, or dispute the enthusiastic assertions that the world was 

 and always would be clamoring for the product, and that the 

 happy producer had only to name his price. And it seemed 

 reasonable. Before their eyes they saw the great packing- 

 houses thronged with workers, and the orchard owners watch- 

 ing from verandas the harvesting of their crops by those to 

 whom they had sold them on the trees. Allured by these 

 manifestations of success, and by the rapid building of the 

 towns and cities which thrived by it, southern California was 

 rapidly peopled by an exceedingly enterprising community of 

 solid principles and sterling worth. 



The fundamental error in the calculation of the citrus 

 Buthusiasts was in supposing that the phenomenal incomes of 

 the early orange-growers could long continue in the face of the 

 wide area of the earth adapted to orange culture, with sea trans- 

 portation to America enough cheaper than any transconti- 

 nental movement ever could be, to overcome any duty to 

 which the country would probably submit. The orange, 

 under favorable circumstances, is a great bearer, and it was 

 only a question of time to fill vacant land with orange groves 

 to glut the market. Of the special drawbacks I can not speak 

 30 well, as I have not myself raised oranges; I only know that 

 much of what I have said in regard to the cultivation of 

 deciduous fruits applies equally well to orange culture, and in 

 a still greater degree to the cultivation and curing of lemons; 

 there is no more poetry in ploughing orange groves than in 

 ploughing cabbages; the care of a single variety, while sim- 

 pler than that of a mixed orchard of deciduous fruits, is also 

 more monotonous; the orange, while thriving wonderfully in 

 suitable locations, does not do well everywhere, and there are 

 thousands of acres of orange groves which should never have 

 been planted, and which never can yield a profit; the crop is 

 exhausting to the soil, and an extensive use of fertilizers is 

 required; the annual water tax is a burden never to be avoided, 

 and irrigation provokes the growth of weeds as well as of fruit. 

 For some years it seemed likely that the scale insects would 

 destroy tlie groves, and when, after many costly experiments, 

 that pest was in a great measure overcome, the owners of many 

 unprofital)le orchards had bocome almost impoverished. 



