July 27, 1892.] 



Garden and Forest. 



351 



Cultivating the Almond in California. 



THE estimation in which the almond is held in Amer- 

 ica is seen from the fact that nearly six million 

 pounds of these nuts were imported in the fiscal year end- 

 ing- June 30th, 1890. They were valued, too, at $813,000, 

 or considerably more than all other imported nuts put to- 

 g-ether, and this, not because they are the cheapest, for 

 thejr are the most expensive of imported nuts. There are 

 no reliable statistics of the home production, but the area 

 suited for almond cultivation is confined to a {ew spots 

 distributed throughout the whole length of California, and 

 it is doubtful if There is enough of it, all told, to supply 

 the American market. In the last number of the Poptilar 

 Science Monthly Mr. Henry J. Philpott gives a description 

 of the processes by which this favorite nut is produced 

 and made ready for holiday tables, from which we con- 

 dense the following statements : 



Tlie trees are all budded or grafted, for although a seedling 

 Almond may be an improvement on the parent tree, it is apt 

 to be worthless, and may be deadly poison. This inclination 

 to sport is seen even in grafted trees, for in Mr. Philpott's or- 

 chard, in which the cions were all taken from the most pro- 

 lific bearers of the best nuts among tested trees, some of them 

 never bear at all, others bear worthless nuts, one yields a 

 nearly perfect peach-pit enclosed in a nearly perfect almond- 

 drupe. The variety known as the California Paper Shell, orig- 

 inated near Mr. Philpott's ranch, is very distinct, although a 

 purely accidental seedling. Its good size, plump kernel, thin 

 shell, sweet flavor and agreeable appearance enable it to 

 command two or three cents more a pound than any other 

 nuts in the market. It is truest of all to the type and most 

 distinct in the form of the tree. Some growers claim that it 

 is less prolific than many other varieties, but others say that 

 it is the most hardy and most prolific as well as the niost 

 salable almond grown, and it is predicted that it will drive the 

 foreign nuts out of the niarket. 



The Almond-tree resembles in size and shape, as well 

 as in smoothness and color of the bark, an unpruned Apple- 

 tree, while it is the image of a Peach-tree in foliage and green 

 fruit. The leaf is so exactly like that of a I^each, to which it is 

 nearly related, that a casual visitor can scarcely distinguish 

 them. The same is true of the fruit in a green state, which is 

 a peach in taste and smell. Ttie Almond is conimonly grafted 

 on Peach-stock, and an orchard of these trees in bloom is a 

 thing of beauty. 



The cultivation of the Almond is very easy. The orchard 

 is plowed and harrowed once or twice a year, and then the 

 weeds are kept down in the easiest manner possible, but the 

 tree is never pruned, and the fruit is never thinned, both of 

 which operations cause great expense in the cultivation of 

 other orchard fruits, while so far it is infested with no parasites, 

 and the grower is not at the expense of buying and applying 

 insecticides or fungicides. First to bloom in the spring, the 

 Almond is the last to rnature in the autumn. All sun-imer 

 long the fruit bangs, the image of a gi-een peach, and after 

 the first few weeks never increasing or changing in appear- 

 ance. Late in August the seam, which is rather deeper than in 

 most peaches, will open in a few of the earliest, and then the 

 growers are anxious to know whether the almonds will open 

 and remain open, or whether the drupe will remain closed, or 

 will open partially and then close tight, for the whole profit of 

 the crop may depend on the behavior of the fruit in this re- 

 spect. It may cost half of what the crop is worth to pick and 

 husk it. 



The nuts are knocked off of the tree with long poles, and if 

 they are well open they are allowed to drop on the bare ground 

 and are husked as they are picked up. Those which do not 

 open are husked with the fingers. The variety mentioned 

 above is one of the freest, and its drupe often falls off spon- 

 taneously and leaves the naked nut hanging to the tree. But 

 the nut so freed from the drupe clings tightest of all to the 

 stem and is often hard to knock down without injury to the 

 branches. In the best of seasons a large part of the crop is so 

 badly opened that a canvas is spread under the tree for the 

 nuts to fall on. When all are knocked down the canvas is 

 rolled up and carried to a place where there is a simple table 

 of boards. One picker rubs the nuts to loosen the drupes, and 

 the others husk. The rubber is practically two old-fashioned 

 washboards which slide over each other. The machine is a 

 flat-bottomed trough, six or eight feet long, and open at one 

 end, across the bottom of which pieces of lath are tacked an 



inch apart. The nuts are scooped in, a few poimds at a time, 

 and a shorter board, also ribbed crosswise with lath and 

 handled like a fiat-iron, is rul_)bed over them, loosening their 

 husks and pushing them toward the open end of the trough, 

 where they fall into a box to be husked. In larger orchards 

 more complicated machinery is operated by horse or stean-i 

 power, but the drupes and nuts are still separated by hand. 

 The drupes are generally only loosened by the machine ; few 

 of them are rubbed completely off, because, if force enough 

 were employed to remove the drupe, it would break the shell; 

 therefore, in many orchards this year, the only way to market 

 the almond was to crack it with the drupe on and sell the 

 kernel. 



Picking and husking ain-ionds costs from %^o to $100 a ton, 

 after which the nuts are sent to be dried and bleached with the 

 fimies of sulphur, a process which requires care and expe- 

 rience. If this is done well and the nuts come out bright and 

 evenly bleached the grower is satisfied, for he knows that it 

 is the color which sells his almonds. It is claimed that fruit, 

 such as apricots and apples, which is sul]iluired is poison, and 

 yet unbleached fruit will not bring livnig prices. It is not 

 probable, however, that sidphuring, as it is conducted, is of 

 any real injury even to evaporated fruit, but in the case of the 

 almond it is only the shells that are colored. As a rule, the 

 harder the shell the whiter the almond will Ijleach, although 

 this new l-'aper Shell of California will bleach the whitest of all. 



When cured for market, the nuts are stored and shipped like 

 barley, in coarse gunny-sacks, and although a single sack costs 

 but seven or ten cents, the whole expense is a burden on Cali- 

 fornia producers to the amount of $2,000,000. Where grain 

 has to be handled from five to ten times before it reaches the 

 consumer, and all grain is shipped from the Pacific ports in 

 this manner, the sack is a still more expensive crudity, and the 

 grain-grower loses by it ten per cent, of his gross proceeds. 

 But the burden on the Almond-grower is trifiing, one per 

 cent, perhaps of the gross product, and the sack is altogether 

 an advantage, for it saves the delicate shell and furnishes a 

 place for the brand of the orchardist, who is proud of his prod- 

 uct and wishes to work up a reputation for it, and it also gives 

 an opportunity for nai-ning the variety contained in each sack. 



The practical question confronting each prospective orchard- 

 ist is, How soon will trees come into bearing and pay expenses 

 and interest on the investment ? Some old men who have 

 tried it conclude that too much planting for posterity is mis- 

 taken kindness, for which posterity, lying in the shade, kicking 

 up its heels and lettii-ig its faculties rust for want of some 

 planting to do, returns no thanks. But the Almond is an early 

 bearer. At four years, from seed, Mr. Philpott's orchard 

 yielded $80 per acre gross, say $60 net. This year, at six 

 years old, with prices consideralily below the average, the pro- 

 ceeds will be $125 an acre. Few orchards have yielded so 

 much per tree of the same size, but these trees are so wide 

 apart that there are only half the usual number to the acre. 

 While the trees are small, this tells against the yield per acre. 

 In a general way, it may be said that an Almond-orchard 

 yields as quick a return as a herd of beef-stcers_, and at the 

 same time the planter does not lose the use of his land. He 

 plants other crops between the rows, but, of course, no or- 

 dinary annual crop will yield a profitable return from the price 

 he must pay for land known to be adapted to almonds. The 

 almond, most precious by weight of all orchard-products, in- 

 volves less labor, care, anxiety, expense and skill than any 

 other, excepting, perhaps, the Prune. In recent years it has 

 never yielded the fabulous returns realized by the growers of 

 some other fruit or nut. It never yields, as an Orange-orchard 

 has, a competence for life in a single year from ten acres. Its 

 reasonable expectations are about $100 net per acre. 



Wild Flowers in Italy. 



A BOUT the 20th of May the Italian summer overtakes us 

 ^^ on the hill-top where this city sits. We do not then, how- 

 ever, experience its full power, the still, steady fervor which 

 July has in store, but merely the soft freshness of a perfect 

 New England June, in response to which millions of Roses 

 break bud and send gentle waves of perfume all through the 

 ancient city. Roses are there everywhere. Enter a shop in 

 the busiest street, and a great Marechal Niel nods at you 

 through the open window at the farther end. Pause be- 

 fore the open door of a frowning fourteenth-century palace, 

 and across its paved court-yard you see a tangle of cream and 

 crimson blossom. For there is here none of the prim for- 

 mality of an English garden of "standards" — a collection of 

 walking-sticks supporting a half dozen overcultivated flowers. 



