B. P. L-31. S. P. I.-26. 



SPANISH ALMONDS AND THEIR INTRODUCTION INTO 



AMERICA. 



INTRODUCTION. 



The most valuable almonds of commerce are those grown in south- 

 eastern Spain. They are hard-shelled varieties and bring on the 

 English and American markets 8 to 10 cents a pound more than any 

 other sort, being in favor with confectioners for the manufacture of 

 their best salted and sugar-coated almonds. These superlative sorts 

 are imported from Spain by Boston and New York importers for retail 

 to confectioners, many thousands of dollars being expended annually 

 on this import. 



Since 1885 Californians have been growing almonds quite success- 

 fully, and there are in certain valleys in the State localities where 

 almond culture has become distinctly profitable. 



According to the statistics collected by Mr. W. A. Taylor and pub- 

 lished in the Yearbook of the Department of Agriculture for 1897 as 

 much as 2,500,000 pounds had been produced in California in a single 

 year prior to that date. Commercial estimates of the crop of 1900, 

 furnished through the kindness of Mr. Taylor, place the almond yield 

 of California at nearly 5,500,000 pounds in that year. The quality of 

 the product is excellent for man} T uses, but confectioners prefer the 

 imported article, as is evidenced by the fact that they imported in 1897 

 over |683,000 worth, largely from Spain. It has been assumed that 

 the superiorit}" of these Spanish nuts over the Calif ornian lies in some 

 unexplained and unexplainable peculiarity in the climate of southeast- 

 ern Spain which finds no equivalent in California. The better informed 

 growers, however, have known that the question was largely a matter 

 of variety, and that the best Spanish sort had never been introduced 

 into America. The matter of its introduction may have been dis- 

 cussed prior to 1893 by California horticulturists, but up to that year, 

 so far as the writer has been able to discover, only the kernels, which 

 form the commercial article, had been known in this country. In 1893 

 the Division of Pomology of the Department of Agriculture secured 

 from Mr. Charles Heath, United States consul at Catania, Sicily, u 

 handful of the uncracked nuts which he had secured from a firm in 

 Malaga. These were of the so-called Jordan variety, and were said to 

 have been grown on some islands off the Spanish coast. The remark- 



