72 PROCEEDINGS OF THIRTY-SIXTH FRUIT-GROWERS ' CONVENTION. 



instance, that when our Commissioner has all the counties organized 

 he will ask you to do something and you will be sure to go and do it. 

 Things seem to be coming and have to come now. When I went To inves- 

 tigate some of the orchards in the northern part of the State I called 

 upon a gentleman who was very successful in growing oranges, and I 

 said to him, "We have come here to find out how you raise such a large 

 crop of fine oranges in Oroville. larger than we raise in Fair Oaks." 

 He said, "I can't tell you." The editors of horticultural papers put 

 more into their papers than they can put in the ground, but I can 

 assure you I can not put on paper what the orange grower puts into 

 the ground, and so my paper is disappointing to me and I am afraid 

 it will be to you, but the thing is in the ground if we can get it out. 



CITRUS CULTURE IN THE NORTH. 



By Pkof. Elmore Chase, of Fair Oaks. 



This paper will treat in a general way of the orange, not referring to 

 grape fruit and the lemon, though both of the fruits flourish equally 

 well with that of the orange. If any difference exists, it is in favor of 

 the grape fruit. The methods of culture which apply to the orange will 

 apply to the growing of other citrus fruits. 



The citrus region of northern California has very indefinite bound- 

 aries; but it has been demonstrated by a few years of experience in 

 growing this fruit, that it can be grown successfully over a great por- 

 tion of the State, except in the extreme northern counties and in the 

 higher altitudes of the Sierra and Coast ranges and in the lower interior 

 valleys. The fact that the extreme southern counties have made this 

 their chief horticultural industry, has given the impression abroad that 

 this industr} 7 - will not flourish elsewhere. Outside of these counties 

 there are large areas extending the entire length of the San Joaquin 

 and Sacramento valleys and as far north as Shasta in which very fine 

 citrus fruits are grown. Not all of this area is suited to this industry, 

 but the places which are suited to it are very numerous, and the acreage 

 is rapidly increasing. Kern County produces a fruit of exceedingly 

 good quality. Porterville and Lindsay in Tulare, and other places along 

 the foothill lands are sharing the honors of this industry with similarly 

 favored sections of the south. Placer has become well known by the 

 orange groves of Loomis, Newcastle, and Penryn, and Sacramento by 

 those of Fair Oaks and Orangevale. Butte County is made famous by 

 the Oroville district and the adjacent colonies of Palermo and Therma- 

 lito. In fact, this county may be said to stand at the head of this 

 industry in the farther north. It has an orange tree transplanted from 

 Sacramento to Bidwell's Bar in 1859. Yuba and Stanislaus are pur- 

 suing this industry on quite a large scale, while Sonoma has been hold- 

 ing citrus fairs for the past ten years. Amador and Calaveras are not 

 behind other places in growing a very excellent quality of fruit. Fresno 

 also comes in for her share. Thus it will be seen that citrus culture in 

 the North is boundless. 



Let it be noted, too, that while orange trees from twenty to fifty 

 years of age are growing all over this section of the State, the commer- 

 cial industry dates back less than a score of years. This industry, 

 while it has passed the experimental stage, is as yet in its infancy, and 



