52 Tne First Over-Supply. 
vail. The experience of the last decade has shown that irrigation 
facilities are more valuable even for deciduous fruits than was 
once thought possible. This proposition will be discussed in the 
chapter on Irrigation. 
Early Wisdom and Enterprise-—It is evident to anyone who 
studies the records, that California was very fortunate in num- 
bering among the early settlers so many men with horticultural 
tastes, skill, and experience. The rapidity with which fruit trees 
were multiplied, and the confidence with which these early com- 
ers entered upon the nursery business, shows their training. 
Although there were many trees brought here from the East 
and from Europe, they constituted only a very small per- 
centage of the plantings of the first few vears, but the orchards, 
with the exception of a very small number of trees introduced 
to furnish grafting and budding stock, were the product of the 
soil. When this is borne in mind, it becomes all the more won- 
derful how so much could be done in a new country, in a distant 
part of the world, in so very short a time. It was an observa- 
tion which was put upon record as early as 1856, that ‘‘some 
varieties of fruit are much improved by change to this State, and 
some are not benefited.” The test seems to have been that if a 
variety was not better than at the East, it should be discarded. 
The First Oversupply—The wonderful stimulus given to the 
fruit interest by the results attained in growth and in marketing, 
soon induced larger plantings than the demand warranted. In 
1857 it was publicly stated that “there are single farms in this 
State, containing each over half a million fruit trees in orange 
and nursery—one person owning enough trees, when fully ma- 
tured, to produce as much fruit, other than grapes, as will be 
sold this year throughout our State. The day is not far distant 
when fruit will be an important crop for raising and fattening 
swine.” This was, to a certain extent, a statement of a croaker, 
for plantations continued, rare varieties were brought from the 
East, the South, and from Europe; the growth of some fruits 
continued to be very profitable, and the nursery business, con- 
fined to fewer hands, was profitable also. The idea that quality 
rather than size should be striven for led to more discrimination 
in propagation and better treatment of trees. 
The decade from 1858 to 1868 was one of quiet in the fruit 
interest of California. Many of the too hastily and carelessly 
planted trees died from lack of proper cullivation and pruning, 
and the borer wrought sad havoc. In 1860 and 1861 there was 
serious depression. It is recorded that peaches were worth but 
one cent a pound, and many were allowed to go to waste as not 
worth gathering. The flood of 1862 destroyed many trees along 
the Sacramento River, and replanting was slow until prices be- 
