Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 44.djvu/213

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THE FRUIT INDUSTRY IN CALIFORNIA.
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have a hundred acres of oranges; Fresno, Stanislaus, and Tulare, in the San Joaquin Valley, have also barely commenced the culture of semitropic fruits. But the industry is more at home in the Coast Range valleys from Santa Barbara south and southeast. There, also, it is of longer growth, three out of four trees being in bearing, while in the counties that have but lately begun to plant semitropic fruits more than half the orchards have not yet fruited to any extent. The beginnings of fig and olive orchards are more generally distributed throughout the State than are lemon and orange orchards. Classified from this standpoint, the lemon is represented by one or more acres in thirty counties, the orange in thirty-eight, the fig in forty-two, and the olive in forty-four.

Deciduous fruits cover a very wide range, both in variety and distribution. The apple, apricot, cherry, peach, prune, and pear are the principal deciduous fruits grown in California. There are some nectarine and quince orchards, and the Japanese persimmon is planted to some extent. Many other deciduous fruit trees find place in family orchards and experimental grounds, but those named comprise all that are of commercial value at the present time.

A complete table of the deciduous fruit acreage by counties would include every one of the fifty-three. The apple, for instance, is grown everywhere. The peach and prune better represent the deciduous fruits. A unit of one hundred acres would force us to classify some forty-five counties. Even five hundred acres as a unit would list twenty-nine counties; but, by raising it to a thousand acres, we include all, or nearly all, of the famous deciduous fruit districts.

Table II.—Acreage of Deciduous Fruits.

County. Apples. Apricots. Cherries. Peaches. Pears. Prunes and
plums.
Alameda 505 3,310 2,171 1,375 1,701 4,236
Butte 307 540 165 3,286 913 1,144
El Dorado 225 29 39 1,338 200 279
Fresno 185 556 7 2,058 634 1,601
Kern 338 320 25 1,079 315 946
Los Angeles 1,511 2,899 18 4,059 1,661 3,748
Orange 128 1,492 10 1,203 900 905
Placer 332 280 272 3,621 1,070 615
Sacramento 139 535 160 2,870 2,900 1,770
San Bernardino 222 1,554 15 2,090 402 1,463
Santa Clara 750 4,350 1,250 5,570 900 8,900
Solano 153 3,733 436 4,915 3,050 2,870
Sonoma 4,121 229 317 2,507 1,407 2,600
Tehama 86 574 100 3,182 520 1,328
Tulare 147 724 10 3,800 642 5,270
Yolo 75 824 50 1,040 621 1,522
Total (16 counties) 9,224 21,949 5,045 43,993 17,836 39,197