CHAPTER L 



LEIV 



Lemon culture in California has not 

 kept pace with orange culture. For this 

 two reasons are assignable: 



1st. The territory adapted to the grow- 

 ing of lemons is much restricted. 



2d. The lemons mostly grown Iiave 

 been inferior, and the demand and com- 

 pensation correspondingly small. 



These obstacles are by no means insur- 

 mountable. Now that the suitable condi- 

 tions for the lemon tree have been well 

 defined by experience, the fact is evident 

 that there are many locations — a large 

 acreage — where the lemon may be suc- 

 cessfully grown. As to the quality of the 

 fruit, that may be improved just as all 

 other fruits are improved — by the selec- 

 tion of fine varieties and their perpetua- 

 tion by budding. Given a locality well 

 suited to the requirements of the tree and 

 a selected variety, and I challenge the 

 citrus growing world to produce a finer 

 lemon than we can grow in Southern Cal- 

 ifornia. Until five or six years ago no 

 elforts were made to introduce fine varie- 

 ties of this fruit. The kind universally 

 grown was a Seedling from the Sicily 

 lemon, and indeed at the present time 

 these constitute the great bulk of the lem- 

 ons on our market. This Seedling is a 

 large, coarse-grained fruit, with a rind 

 from a quarter to a half inch in thickness, 

 a pulp inversely small, and the juice lack- 

 ing in both quantity and qua],ity. Such a 

 lemon is a palpable fraud upon the pur- 

 chaser, as it does not perform the half 

 that it promises by its exterior bulk. It 

 is undesirable for the shipper and mer- 

 chant because it is quite perishable. The 

 pulpy rind when subjected to a slight 

 bruise or to too close packing is speedily 

 smitten with decay, and the fruit is often 

 lost in transit. When we consider that 

 these lemons have too often been picked 

 and packed in the most bungling and 

 shiftless manner; that the sweating pro- 

 cess previous to shipment has been al- 



most wholly unknown or disregarded; 

 that the fruit has reached the consignee 

 many times in a rotten or semi-rotleii 

 condition, and that when presented at its 

 very best it is a third or fourth class arti- 

 cle; when we consider all these points we 

 need not wonder that our lemon trade is 

 in the doldrums. 



The remedy for this condition of things 

 is easy of accomjjlishmeni: Raise good 

 fruit. Prepare and ship it properly. We 

 ma3^ then sell all the lemons we raise and 

 realize handsomely from this industry. 



The lemon tree, being more susceptible 

 to frost than the orange, is not adapted to 

 our middle and lower lands, except in well 

 sheltered quailers. It thrives however 

 on our mesas, at an altitude of one thou- 

 sand to two thousand feet above sea level,, 

 where frosts severe enough to damage it 

 have never been known. There are thou- 

 sands of aci'es of such land in S(nuhern 

 California, some already improved in 

 fruit farms and much still awaiting devel- 

 opment. 



Discussing lemon culture in a paper 

 read before the State Horticultural Socie- 

 ty in 1883, Mr. L. M. Holt, one of our best 

 authorities on citrus trees, has this to say: 



"The climate must be such that the ex- 

 treme cold shall not be hard enough to kill 

 the trees or injure the fruit, and it must 

 be of such a character that the common 

 scale and the fungus known as black dust 

 shall not flourish. 



" When the mercury has been down tO" 

 23° above zero, the orchardist will find his 

 lime trees killed, his lemon trees badly 

 frosted, and his smaller orange trees hurt, 

 especially if his budded orange trees are 

 on lemon, China lemon, or lime roots. 



" Cold weather produces a thick skin, a 

 lack of juice, and in the case of the lemon 

 a lack of acid. Climate, also, has much 

 to do with the common scale and black 

 dnst. They prevail mostly along the coast 

 valleys, and increase from San Dieg© 



