November 25, 1896. 



Garden and Forest. 



477 



Canadense is especially large this autumn, but Berberis Thun- 

 bergii is still the brightest of our autumn-berried plants, and I 

 can recall no other shrub of comparatively recent introduction 

 that has given so much satisfaction at all seasons. The Bay- 

 berries are more fruitful than ever this year and the bluish-gray 

 berries show up admirably. Rosa lucida is a mass of scarlet ; 

 the white fruits of Symphoricarpus racemosus are still in good 

 condition, while those on S. vulgaris are just coloring- red. 

 These autumn fruits make a show that is quite as satisfactory, 

 and, in some cases, even more so than the flowers do earlier 

 in the season. Yesterday the Forsythias were flowering more 

 freely than they did last spring, and quite a number of flowers 

 could be plucked from Daphne Cneorum, Erica vagans, Loni- 

 cera Morrowii, Pyrus Japonica, Genista tinctoria and several 

 more. 



Jamaica Plain, Mass. Jackson Da-MSOU. 



Lemons in California. 



To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir, — The lemon is not often mentioned, if at all, in accounts 

 of the early California orchards, and only within the last three 

 years has it had any standing, either actual or prospective, as 

 a fruit for export. An acknowledged authority on horticulture 

 in California, in a work published only five years ago, thus 

 summed up the situation, as it was then: "The lemon 

 product of California is very small. The tree is less hardy 

 than the Orange, and is otherwise more exacting in its require- 

 ments. For this reason it is probable that a much smaller 

 area of California is adapted to the commercial production of 

 the lemon. The fruit also has a grievous competitor in the 

 imported Sicily fruit and the popular favoritism for it, which, 

 like many other popular fancies, amounts to a blind prejudice. 

 There is, however, reason for the preference for the imported 

 fruit, when one considers only the relation of the common 

 California seedling lemon to the Sicilian fruit, for the common 

 California seedlings are very poor, overgrown and coarse, 

 deficient in acid and full of bitterness, prone to decay even 

 when fairly handled. But when the comparison is drawn be- 

 tween a few improved varieties, which are now quite largely 

 produced and properly cured by a few enterprising growers, 

 California lemons have nothing to fear from the imported 

 fruit, except popular prejudice. Still, there is progress being 

 continually made by the few growers who have confidence in 

 the home product, and intelligence and diligence to properly 

 prepare it for marketing, and they find the fruit very profitable. 

 It now seems assured that the next few years will bring Cali- 

 fornia-grown lemons into better repute and larger supply." 



This quotation contains a prophecy which is now being ful- 

 filled, and also some statement of the difficulties under which 

 California lemon growers labored only five years ago. The 

 growth of the orange industry was more rapid for the reason 

 that the Washington Navel variety was seen at once to be so 

 good an orange that its ultimate popularity in the markets of 

 the east was a question only of time and persistence. More- 

 over, this orange was found to be adapted to many different 

 sections of California. No universally accepted variety of 

 lemon was known, and growers ten years ago were all at sea 

 as regards varieties, soil, propagation, cultivation and methods 

 of curing. As usual, under such circumstances, a few enthu- 

 siastic pioneers took all the risks, and demonstrated to slower 

 and more timid men what could be done with the lemon in 

 California. Some of these venturesome planters reaped large 

 rewards from their foresight. One of them, Mr. G. W. Garce- 

 lon, of Riverside, for several years realized as much as from 

 $1,200 to $1,500 an acre from his lemons. To one who did not 

 understand the circumstances of the case this statement would 

 appear fabulous. But at this time there were not enough 

 lemons grown in California to supply the home demand. 

 Very few people made even a tolerable success at curing 

 them, and Mr. Garcelon, who did make a success and had the 

 secret of keeping his lemons in storage until there were no 

 others in the market, sold his product in San Francisco at 

 $5.00 and $6 00 a box. Two hundred, or even four hundred, 

 boxes to the acre is not an unusual yield, and it is a simple 

 problem to figure out the resulting profits. Mr. Garcelon was 

 supposed to possess some wonderful secret process of curing 

 because the quality of his lemons was so much higher than 

 that of others. He was importuned to give awav or sell his 

 secret. It is said that even the state tried to buv it, but, for a 

 long time, he refused to sell, and continued making a brilliant 

 success where others failed. Finally, four or five years ago, 

 he divulged his process, the details of which were published 

 everywhere in California. It was found to be not a method of 

 pickling, preserving or forcing, as many had supposed, but 



simply a system of curing with great care and attention to 

 handling the fruit, to temperature and to other details. This 

 process, with some modifications by different packers, has 

 been generally adopted, and has settled in great measure the 

 question of curing. 



The Lemon is a perennial bearer— that is, it produces sev- 

 eral crops a year, although the largest and best crop is ready 

 for picking between the first of December and the first o'f 

 April. To get the best results lemons must be picked every 

 month— at least ten months— of the year. This fact compli- 

 cated the problem very much, as the individual grower, in 

 most cases, did not gather enough lemons at a time for a 

 profitable shipment and did not know how to keep them. 

 This difficulty, with others, as will be shown later, has been 

 overcome by experience and concerted action. The question 

 of soils and localities was for a long time discussed without 

 settlement. Some growers recommended a sandy loam or a 

 sandy, gravelly soil ; others a deep, rich, red soil ; others a 

 sedimentary, clayey loam. It has been found that the Lemon 

 does well on all of these soils, but my opinion is that a sandy 

 loam which is not too sandy is probably the best. The charac- 

 ter of the soil may exert some influence not yet fully under- 

 stood upon the curing and keeping properties of the fruit. 

 Some growers argued that the Lemon would not do well near 

 the coast, yet the largest Lemon orchard in the world, com- 

 prising one thousand acres, has since been planted near San 

 Diego, only a few miles from the coast, and San Diego County 

 has more Lemon-trees than any other in California. Oihers 

 contended that the Lemon would not thrive in the hot valleys 

 of the interior, yet it does well in San Bernardino and Riverside 

 counties, where the summer temperature, in the shade, is 

 sometimes a hundred and five degrees. Locations near the 

 coast which will not produce the best oranges grow very fine 

 lemons; but, on the other hand, in some of these localities 

 there is some smut on the lemons, and they have to be washed, 

 while those grown farther inland are much brighter and cleaner. 

 The Lemon is more susceptible to frost than the Orange, a fact 

 which must be considered wherever it is planted, but, apart 

 from this fact, it is doubtless true that first-class lemons can be 

 grown over a wider area in southern California than first-class 

 oranges, and that the Lemon will do well on as great a variety 

 of soils. Irrigation was another greatly mooted question a few 

 years ago. Some thought that the Lemon needed much more 

 water than the Orange ; others thought it needed less. Com- 

 mon sense and experience have decided that no general rule 

 can be established, but that the amount of irrigation varies 

 with the character of the soil and the climate. Each grower 

 must test for himself the conditions of his own soil and loca- 

 tion. But the amount and time of irrigation, as well as the use 

 of fertilizers, undoubtedly have great influence upon the quality 

 of the fruit and the time of ripening. If too much water is 

 used the fruit is overgrown and coarse. Irrigation deferred 

 until late in summer delays the blossoming and budding, and 

 consequently the ripening of the crop. Chemical fertilizers 

 alone are valuable for the Lemon. All others tend to produce 

 growth of wood ra'her than of fruit, a growth which is not 

 needed or wanted, as the Lemon, in many locations, grows so 

 fast that half of the new growth has to be cut back every year, 

 and to force wood-growth is simply to add to this waste. 



Theory and fact, which are so often opposed in fruit-grow- 

 ing, were diametrically opposite in the matter of propagating 

 Lemon-trees. Theorists argued that the best lemons must 

 necessarily come from trees grown from lemon seeds, or from 

 cuttings taken from Lemon-trees. They saw an absurdity in 

 budding the Lemon, which is a sour fruit, to an Orange, the 

 most desirable quality of which is sweetness. Yet this appa- 

 rent contradiction is now universally practiced in southern 

 California, after years of discussion and experimentation. The 

 Lemon does not come true to name from seeds, and buds 

 which are grafted upon an Orange root produce better fruit 

 than buds grafted upon a Lemon root. This was long a vexed 

 question and is a good illustration of the fact that experience 

 alone can teach what is best in the growing of fruit. 



Three varieties are now accepted in California as the best, 

 and litde is heard of any others. These are the Lisbon, the 

 Villa Franca and the Eureka. The two former are importa- 

 tions from Europe ; the Eureka originated in California. The 

 Lisbon is a thorny tree ; the Villa Franca is (hornless, and the 

 Eureka is nearly so. The Lisbon makes the largest tree of the 

 three and is a very prolific heaier. Its fruit is of a uniformly 

 medium size, is strongly acid and is a good keeper. For these 

 reasons it is a very popular variety, although the flavor of the 

 Eureka is preferred by mosl people. These two are more 

 often planted than the Villa Franca. The Eureka bears fruit 

 every month in the year. 



