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PROFITS OF FRUIT RAISING. 



WHAT VARIETIES TO PLANT, AND HOW TO PLANT THEM. 



Essay by Milton Thomas, Los Angeles. 



In coaling before you to say something in regard to the present and 

 future of the fruit industry, I shall try to show some of the various ways 

 and the different processes of preparing and marketing our fruit. In this 

 brief way I cannot refer to all the products of this wonderful industry, nor 

 the various avenues that are likely to open for the disposal of the fruits of 

 California. 



The possibilities of the fruit industry in California are beyond our most 

 sanguine expectations. Let us look at the various ways in which our fruit 

 can be used. Let us look at the subject briefly. 



I shall take up the subject of horticulture in the broadest sense, making 

 it include all the fruits that grow and do well on this coast. 



FRUITS IN OLDEN TIMES. 



In taking a retrospective view of the various fruits that were grown in 

 California in 1849 and 1850, we find there were only a few kinds, and those 

 of inferior varieties, except grapes and oranges. The Mission grape was 

 about the only foreign variety grown at that time in California, and it was 

 considered quite a luxury to the miners and others who came here at that 

 time. It is still a good grape, but since that time there have been intro- 

 duced from Europe very many other varieties that excel. In the same 

 years there were a few orange trees grown in Los Angeles County. I remem- 

 ber in 1869 being shown a few old trees, at the old Mission San Gabriel, 

 that were eighty years old, still in a good state of preservation, and bearing 

 well. These old orange trees and the Mission grapes introduced by the 

 Catholic fathers probably over a hundred years ago proved a success, and 

 led to others being planted, and we are indebted to-day to these Catholic 

 fathers for these fruits. There are also old seedling pear trees at the Mis- 

 sion over one hundred years old. The first grafted fruit trees were brought 

 to California in 1851 , 1852, and 1853. Fruit trees at that time were $1 apiece, 

 and the fruits were sold from $1 to $2 per pound. But this was in the 

 golden days of California, when mining was the principal industry, and 

 men made $10, $12, and $16 per day. As time passed there were more 

 fruit trees planted, nurseries established, and the price of trees and fruits 

 diminished, and before railroads reached our coast the price of fruit was 

 not remunerative, and orchardists lost their interest in fruit raising, and it 

 was some years before fruit was shipped East with profit. 



Porter Brothers, of Chicago, commenced to ship fruit East in large quan- 

 tities several years ago; then others commenced. Finally one thousand 

 or more carloads of green fruit were shipped in a year. It was not always 

 a success, especially if the market was glutted or the fruit was received in 

 poor condition. The freight per car was $600 to $900, whereas now it is 

 but $200 to $300; so you can see that the fruit industry in the past was not 

 always profitable. 



