148 PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-SIXTH FRUIT-GROWERS' CONVENTION. 



tion may be. Witness the olive orchards of Italy, southern France, 

 Spain, and other countries. Witness the vine-clad hills of France. For 

 three thousand years or more around the basin of the Mediterranean 

 these fruits have been cultivated; they are found in every favorable 

 location, but there is no surplus of production. They bring the highest 

 prices, and a small olive orchard or a small vineyard is equivalent to a 

 fortune. The horticulturist should send none but the best fruits to 

 market and should leave the inferior kinds at home — make brandy or 

 vinegar of them, feed them to the hogs, or utilize them in some other 

 way. By doing this he will help to create a demand for good, whole- 

 some fruit, and make it popular as a part of the dietary among the 

 masses of the people. In this way, in course of time, it can be made a 

 most important adjunct to bread, the staff of life, and take to a large 

 extent the place of meat on the tables of the millions. Thirty to fifty 

 dollars a ton is considered a good price for fruit, that is to say, 1-| to 2^ 

 cents per pound. It is thus much cheaper than meat. Let fifteen 

 million families consume on an average three pounds per day, and we 

 have an annual consumption of 16,425,000,000 pounds. This will 

 give an idea of the extent of our market. Of course, I do not anticipate 

 such a consumption to-day, but meat is constantly growing dearer, and 

 soon will be out of reach of the poorer classes of our population. 



A man must be born with a taste for the business of fruit-growing 

 and taking care of trees. He must acquire it by very thorough educa- 

 tion; if not, he will certainly fail. This is not the day when you can 

 give the people any old thing in the shape of fruit. It must be good, or 

 they will have none of it. There never was a more splendid oppor- 

 tunity than the present for the fruit-grower, and indeed for all interested 

 in the welfare of the State, to advertise California fruit. The hotels in 

 San Francisco and throughout the interior are filled with Eastern visi- 

 tors who have come to see what California is like. Every chance that 

 offers itself to show them what California fruit is should be taken. 

 The hotel-keeper should make his tables groan under the profusion and 

 variety of choice fruits: the citrus fruit of the Southland, and the 

 deciduous product of all California. Our splendid mountain apples 

 should be found side by side with the oranges and lemons of Los 

 Angeles, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego, and of Placer and other 

 localities of the north, with canned peaches, pears, apricots, and other 

 preserved fruits from the California Fruit Canners' Association, 

 prunes from Santa Clara, raisins from Fresno and other counties, and 

 grapes from all parts of the State. Instead of European wines, the 

 very best vintages of California should take their place, and a pride 

 should be felt in so disposing of everything that our guests shall see 

 California in her very best light. And the private citizen, in extending 

 California's proverbial hospitality to the strangers within our gates, 



