202 Stocks and Soils for the Apricot. 
ance. The fact is that the apricot has a very wide range in Cal- 
ifornia, and though the trees have been cut out at some points 
it has been chiefly because too frosty locations have been chosen 
or because some other fruit has seemed to be locally more de- 
sirable, for one reason or another. 
In some valleys in the upper part of the State opening 
directly to the ocean, there is sometimes complaint of the crack- 
ing of the fruit on the sunny side. The alternation of sunshine 
and fog seems to have something to do with this, for in favor- 
able years, when fogs are few, the fruit is sound. 
Locations for early ripening of the apricot are to be chosen 
with reference to the influence of topography, as laid down in 
the chapter on that subject. In a general way, it may be said, in 
regions directly subject to coast influences, both in northern and 
southern California, the apricot is late. On the west side of 
the Sacramento Valley, in small, hili-locked valleys, the earliest 
apricots have been grown for years. Protected situations in 
the foot-hills of the Sierra Nevada, on the eastern rim of both the 
Sacramento and San Joaquin Valleys, share in the production of 
the earliest ripening fruit. There is, probably, about a month’s 
difference in the ripening of the same variety in the earliest in- 
terior situations and in the coast valleys of both northern and 
southern California. 
In the interior of southern California, in irrigated situa- 
tions, on the west side of the so-called Colorado Desert, and in 
Arizona, apricots rival in earliness the product of the famous 
valleys of interior northern California. 
STOCKS AND SOILS FOR THE APRICOT. 
Because of the success with which the apricot can be 
budded on various stocks, it has a wide range in adaptation to 
different soils. Budded on the peach root it may be grown 
successfully on the light, warm, well-drained loams in which the 
peach delights. The peach root is, in fact, largely used for the 
apricot. It gives the tree quick growth and early fruiting, and 
the fact that the gopher does not like the peach root is a con- 
sideration with some planters. In growing stock, pits of a 
strong-growing yellow peach should be secured. 
For deep, rich, well-drained, loamy soils, the apricot on its 
own root makes a magnificent tree. Apricot roots for budding 
are easily secured. The pits sprout as readily as corn. Some- 
times, where cutting and drying are done in the orchard, the 
ground the next spring will be almost covered with a volunteer 
crop of seedling apricots. These little plants, taken up and set 
out in nursery rows in March, are ready for budding in June or 
July. Large numbers of trees are sometimes secured in this 
way. In the upper San Joaquin Valley there are situations in 
