PROCEEDINGS OF THIRTY-THIRD FRUIT-GROWERS ' CONVENTION. 245 



On the heavy red soils the vines reach maturity earlier and make 

 larger vines than on less favored soils. The often told story of paying 

 crops of raisins on three-year-old vineyards is true of this soil. I have 

 had three fourths of a ton of raisins to the acre on a three-year-old 

 vineyard. To secure this result the curing and cultivating seasons must 

 be ideal in their way. The vines as ordinarily planted are picked up 

 at random, often made from cuttings taken from a brush pile. This is 

 not the way to make a first-class vineyard. A vineyard is well made 

 when the cuttings are first selected from market vines, then rooted, and 

 again, only the best of these rootings are planted. There is no royal 

 road to vineyard making more than to any other kind of goodness ; it 

 is ever the narrow, straight path of doing each day's work well. 



The varieties of grapes used for raisin making are of European origin. 

 The Muscat de Gordo Blanco, the Muscatelle of Alexandria — both 

 names are used for a white grape in Fresno County that is too nearly 

 alike to have different names. It is a large, light yellow-green grape, 

 with a distinct flavor, thin skinned and very sweet ; a good table grape, 

 as the berries are large sized. It has a fair number of seeds that are 

 closely held in the pulp. The Sultana and the Sultanina are small, 

 light yellow-green grapes, that grow in large bunches and are entirely 

 seedless. A few Feher Zagos and Malagas are dried each year, also for 

 raisins. Under proper conditions the Muscat is a vigorous grower, but 

 it has little ability to withstand adverse conditions. AVhen it is starved 

 it takes to making small two-crown and seedless berries. When this 

 occurs it is time to lengthen the pruning and to put on some fertilizer. 

 The Muscat has been pruned short, very short, to force it into pro- 

 ducing crown clusters of large berries. The demand for the Dehesa 

 cluster has grown less each year. Fresh fruit is plentiful all winter in 

 the large cities and raisins are no longer a necessary part of the dessert. 

 To-day, quantity rather than quality is in demand in raisins ; the 

 pruning has been lengthened ; three, four, and five buds are left on the 

 spurs where a few years ago two would have been considered as enough. 



The Muscat is pruned to low stumps. It was strongly brought to 

 me how forlorn they look after pruning time by a woman on the train 

 saying to me, "I thought this country had grapevines." I said, "Yes, 

 there is a vineyard." "Oh," she replied, " I thought that was newly 

 cleared land covered with stumps." Certainly it requires an eye of 

 faith to see those stumps in a few short months become a vineyard full 

 of beauty. Nature, however, even in the winter time, paints the red 

 brown soil and surrounds the blackened stumps with the gorgeousness 

 of the poppies, and they fill everything with the sunshine of their 

 fragile beauty. 



Frost and defective pruning produce "nigger heads" in a Muscat 

 vineyard. These round black masses with a fringe of new canes around 



