COOPERATIVE CITRUS-FRUIT MARKETING A.GENCY. 3 
nando Valley, Ventura, Santa Barbara, Orange, Los Angeles, River- 
side, and San Bernardino Counties and the southwest portion of San 
Diego County are important lemon producing sections. (See fig. 1.) 
As early as 1883, an orange orchard was planted in Tulare County, 
north of the Tehachapi Range of the Sierra Madre Mountains. (4) 1 
The production of oranges has grown to an important industry in 
Tulare Count} 7 ", especially in the vicinity of Porterville, Lindsay, and 
Exeter. The normal annual production for the county is now appr< i \ - 
imately 6,000 cars. At the same time, an important lemon section 
has developed about Lemon Cove. Less important orange districts 
are found in Kern, Fresno, and Butte Counties. 
EARLY HISTORY. 
Citrus fruits were introduced into California by the Franciscan 
monks who emigrated from Lower California in 1769. Twenty- 
one missions were established, and it is said that all but three of these 
had gardens and orchards. (4) A few orange trees were included in 
all these plantings, but none of them for commercial purposes. 
The development of orange-growing in California centers around 
the San Gabriel Mission which was established in 1771, near what is 
now the city of Los Angeles. An orchard of about 400 orange trees 
was planted, probably in 1804. For several years no other plantings 
of any size were made. The mission orchard gradually fell into 
decay. General Fremont visited California in 1846, and later wrote 
that "little remains of the orchards that were kept in high cultiva- 
tion at the missions." (4) 
It is reported, however, that the second orange orchard in the 
State, consisting of 35 trees transplanted from the orchard of the 
vSan Gabriel Mission, was set out in 1834. (-9) The first commer- 
cial orchard was planted in 1841 by William Wolfskill at Los Angeles- 
After some years of discouragement, it yielded its owner large prof- 
its, some years giving him an income of $1,000 per acre. (9) 
In 1862 there were about 25,000 orange trees in the State, two- 
thirds of which were in the Wolfskill orchard. Other orchards were 
planted during the sixties and seventies, and by 1880 the number of 
orange trees in the State is given by Spalding (9) as 1,250,000, of 
which approximately one-fourth were in bearing. By 1882, accord- 
ing to the same authority, the number of bearing trees had increased 
to half a million. 
Two factors were conducive to the rapid growth of the industry 
during the late seventies and early eighties. In the first place, the 
development of transportation facilities made it possible to ship frnit 
to eastern markets. Good returns were receivea f or these shipments. 
Secondly, the Washington Navel orange, introduced by the Depart- 
ment of Agriculture from Brazil in 1870 and planted a few years 
later at Riverside, Calif., was found to be peculiarly adapted to Cali- 
fornia conditions, and to produce fruit which was large, well-colored, 
of good flavor, and good keeping quality. The large commercial 
development of the California orange industry really began with the 
introduction of the navel orange. Riverside, where the navel orange 
was first successfully grown, soon became the center of the orange 
industry, a position which it maintained for many years. 
1 Figures in italic refer to Literature Cited at end of this bulletin. 
