A Long Growing Season. 25 
A RECAPITULATION OF CALIFORNIA’S CLIMATIC: ENDOWMENT. 
Through the multitude of local observations, which seem 
perplexing and almost contradictory, it is possible to clearly dis- 
cern certain general conditions of both nature and culture, which 
may be briefly advanced as characteristically and distinctively 
Californian. Of these, perhaps the most striking is the length 
of the growing season. 
Take, for instance, the peach in a good peach region. The 
bloom appears in February, followed by the grand foliage ex- 
panding to a leaf-size, marvelous to one unused to such peach 
leaves. The shoots of new growth rush out with vigor, prom- 
ised by such a leaf, and yet the fruit below expands as though 
it would burst its skin in rapid enlargement—and still it grows. 
The new shoot, apparently weary of its several feet of extension, 
stops for a rest, and then, reviving, starts out its laterals—while 
still below the peach is growing. The laterals push out a foot 
or more—all carrying large, fresh leaves. While these are in 
full vigor, the fruit ripens, after having a full half-year’s joint work 
of root and foliage, if it is a late variety. Is it any wonder it 
weighs a pound? But still the tree is active. It forms its termi- 
nal buds, and then all along the new main shoots and their lat- 
erals are formed the leaf and blossom buds for the following year. 
Still the foliage holds green and active, if the moisture below 
be adequate, and the leaves seem loth to fall in the ninth month 
from the time of blooming. Is it any wonder California peaches 
are large and the trees require pruning and thinning to enable 
them to carry the weight produced in such a season of growth? 
And what has been said of the peach is true of other trees, ac- 
cording to their nature and habits. The trees themselves are 
more eloquent of California’s conditions for growth than descrip- 
tions or statistical tables can be made. 
But the quality of the light and heat, if the term is admissi- 
ble, is a factor as well as their duration. The air, free, not 
alone from clouds, but from the insensible aqueous vapor which 
weakens sunshine in its effort to serve vegetation in a humid 
climate, has a clearness and brilliance from its aridity which 
makes each day of the long, growing season more than a day in 
other climates, and thus adds to the calendar length of the grow- 
ing season. The surplus light and heat also act directly in the 
chemistry which proceeds in the tissues of the plant, and we 
have not only size, but quality, color, aroma,—everything which 
makes the perfect fruit precious and beautiful beyond words. 
It is true that for commercial purposes it is not possible to 
allow this process to go too far, for its later effects are higher 
sweetness, accompanied by such juiciness that the fruit cannot 
endure transportation. But go to the tree to apply the only test 
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