TWENTY-NINTH FRUIT-GROWERS' CONVENTION. 



115 



in fruit-growing in the State of California, is replanting and renewals. 

 Yon have got to dig up your trees at some time, and replant. Any man 

 who knows anything about horticultural growth or vegetable life knows 

 that you can not grow the second tree as rapidly and as well as you 

 can the first, because you have taken from the soil the properties which 

 go to make up its strength and fertility. You have to resort to fertili- 

 zation — another expense. In addition, you have to wait from six to 

 fourteen years from the time you dig up your first tree before you can 

 pluck one profitable piece of fruit from your new tree. Frequently your 

 second tree dies also, for the reason that the ground has been impover- 

 ished, or something, and you have to plant again. I am going through 

 that experience now, gentlemen. I dug up trees seven years ago and put 

 new ones out. Last year I dug out the new ones and they never had 

 returned one cent to me. I planted others, and I don't know whether 

 they will grow or not. 



MR. MARSHALL. I just want to speak in regard to Fresno County, 

 the county in which I live. I think that, as Mr. Stephens has made a 

 failure up north, he should come down to Fresno County among people 

 who are making money. Five years ago the mortgage indebtedness of 

 the farms throughout this county was over $42,000,000. To-day it is 

 less than $5,000,000. Now, we have got a fruit county that is all right. 



MR. STEPHENS. Mr. Marshall, I said you had the best county in 

 the State; that you were the most prosperous people in the State. 



MR. STILES. Now, Mr. Stephens adds insult to injury as to vari- 

 ous parts of the State, and I want to tell him why in my county the 

 trees were dug up. The orchard was planted on alfalfa land, land that 

 was not fitted for trees; they were the wrong variety, and in some cases 

 they were planted on land worth more to take gold out of. We have 

 taken $25,000 in gold out of some of that land. Mr. Stephens does not 

 state these things, but seeks to injure our State by the statements 

 which he makes. 



MR. McINTOSH. Mr. Chairman, in view of the fact that I opened 

 this discussion this afternoon, I may claim, I presume, a few moments 

 to close it. We began the discussion as to raisins in the San Joaquin 

 Valley. This began over the paper of Mr. White, in something of a 

 disputatious nature, but it has been enlivened by our friends of our 

 neighboring county of Sacramento. I now desire to return for a few 

 minutes to the general question which was considered in the beginning 

 of this discussion, viz: raisins, in the San Joaquin Valley. We learned 

 from Mr. White this forenoon that 1-| cents a pound for raisins was just 

 about equal to the cost of production, and that the price fixed at the 

 present time is 4 cents a pound, the average price, and it has placed the 

 raisin industry in the position of holding a large proportion of the 

 present crop unsold and with only a bare possibility of realizing in the 



