eaIn eee 
The Assessors’ reports for 1891 show a very large increase in the past 
five years in those counties which have made returns. 
A large portion of these trees, perhaps one half, are not yet in full 
bearing. It is estimated that when the trees now growing in Santa 
Clara County alone shall have matured the annual product will be over 
forty million pounds of dried fruit. 
HABITAT OF THE PRUNE. 
The prune is a very hardy tree, and will thrive in a wide range of 
climate and soil and at various elevations. Wherever the Green Gage 
plum will grow the prune can be grown. It will stand severe winter 
weather, and will grow where the thermometer touches zero. Its favorite 
habitat, however, is a temperate climate and a warm, generous soil. It ' 
can be grown in the Eastern States, but the short seasons there, the 
numerous pests, and the unfavorable conditions for drying which exist, 
prevent the East from ever entering the field as a competitor to Cali- 
fornia in the prune industry. Even in California, while the tree will 
grow in nearly all the counties, there are but few favored localities in 
which it appears at its best. In some sections of this State where the 
prune makes a thrifty growth and yields heavily, there is a lack of 
saccharine matter in the fruit that deprives it of its best qualities, and 
when dried a very inferior product is the result. In other localities 
large juicy fruit will be grown, which decreases heavily in drying. The 
prime requisites in the prune are solid, firm flesh, that will not ferment 
at the pit in drying, a rich, fruity flavor and bouquet, and a keeping 
quality that will stand the test of months or years without serious loss 
from shrinkage, and those sections which possess the peculiarities of 
soil and climate which insure these in their greatest perfection are the 
true prune sections. The drying quality of the prune varies very greatly 
owing to the varieties of soil in which it is grown. In some localities 
it will shrink in drying from four to one, while in others two and a half 
pounds of green fruit will make one pound of dried. The fruit will 
also vary in different places in thickness and toughness of skin. 
The prune is a gross feeder, and wants for its best development a rich 
and heavy soil, with sufficient moisture to feed it. The foothills of 
Santa Clara County have long been regarded as especially favorable to 
the prune, but, as experiments in its growth have been made, other 
sections have been found that furnish all the required conditions, and 
while Santa Clara is still, and probably always will be, the center and 
most important section of this industry, it is not now the only prune 
county of the State. The most extensive single prune orchard in the 
State is now in the Salinas Valley, in San Luis Obispo County, on the 
eastern slope of the Coast Range, near the town of Templeton. In this 
orchard there are nearly three hundred acres of prunes in one bod zy 
containing Ghree-herdved-end-~dsweniy-fOUF THOUSELIG trees. Sonic very - 
excellent prunes are produced in Los Angeles, Orange, San Bernardino, 
San Diego, Ventura, Alameda, Monterey, Napa, Sonoma, and in the 
counties of the San Joaquin and Sacramento Valleys, while especially 
ood results have been reported from Tehama, Shasta, Humboldt, Sutter, 
and Yuba Counties. It is not improbable that in time the different 
localities of the State will discover certain lines in which each excels, 
and the production of specialties in that line will result, the fruit from 
each being known for its own peculiarities. 
