84 



TWENTY-NINTH FEUIT-GROWERS' CONVENTION. 



have the largest crop of raisins the State has ever produced, by more 

 than 5,000,000 pounds. Last year we produced the next largest crop, 

 106,000,000 pounds, and this year it is estimated — and we can make a 

 very close estimate at this time — that we will have 110,000,000 pounds 

 of raisins to dispose of before the end of the season. The beginning of 

 the raisin business in California was in 1873, and that year only 120,000 

 pounds of raisins were produced. The consumption of raisins in the 

 United States is practically the same as it has always been in propor- 

 tion to population, but when the production was small the balance of 

 the requirements for consumption was met by importations from Spain. 

 We have imported from 30,000,000 to 40,000,000 or 50,000,000 pounds 

 per annum. The average consumption of raisins by the American 

 people is not much more than one pound per capita. Now that we have 

 eighty millions of people in the United States, the demand for con- 

 sumption is about 80,000,000 pounds of raisins per annum, whether we 

 produce them or whether they are imported. Now, if we are already 

 producing 110,000,000 pounds, isn't it safe to predict that we are pro- 

 ducing raisins enough to supply the demand, and isn't it right and 

 proper to discourage further planting until we can see our way clear to 

 dispose of the present production? 



PRESIDENT COOPER. I have been told that the Governor is 

 present. If so, will he please come forward? 



The coming spring will mark a period of twenty-four years since the 

 horticultural law was created. In the first year we shipped one carload 

 of fruit across the continent. Last year we shipped about 50,000 cars. 

 The bulk of the increase does not extend back more than twenty years, 

 showing that the increased exportation from California across the con- 

 tinent is about 2,500 cars per year. Calculating, therefore, the continu- 

 ance of such increase for twenty years more, we will, at the end of that 

 time, probably ship 100,000 cars of fruit. I saw it stated in the "Fruit 

 World" that, including the vegetables exported, there will be 77,500 

 cars shipped this year, so that we can fairly calculate that in twenty 

 years more we will ship across the continent more than 150,000 cars of 

 fruit and vegetables. Last year the transportation companies were 

 paid a little over $19,000,000 for the transportation of fruit, so that 

 when, in the near future, we ship 150,000 cars of fruit and vegetables, 

 we will have to pay about $50,000,000 to the transportation companies 

 annually, and one would suppose that those companies would be very 

 keen to get that money. During this period of increase we have over- 

 come many difficulties, but we have still greater difficulties to overcome. 

 There has been no time in the history of fruit-growing in California 

 when advice and wise counsel were more needed than at present. Three 

 times during these years — this is the Twentj^-ninth Fruit-Growers' 



