Can California have a vast carob industry? Probably, but it will take years of experiment to prove it.
(a) Most of the roadside carob trees of California have been watered a little. Therefore, we cannot predict too much from them. The carob industry must depend on rain and rain only. Twenty-five years of test in twenty-five localities may tell how good the carob is for an industry in California. This book is being written to urge testing and improving. It does not urge large-scale commercial plantings of things that do well in single trees.
In favor of the carob is the fact that Californians know little of the tree-crop possibilities of their unirrigated land because they have not yet tried the complete conservation and use of all rainfall (see Chapter XXIII on farm practice, especially water-pocket irrigation).
(b) The roadside tree or any isolated tree is a liar (almost) anyhow. The tree itself is of course innocent, but it is a great aid to a liar. One of the greatest lie recipes on earth is as follows: Take
(1) A single tree
(2) A number of trees per acre
"There are trees near Centerville, Alameda County, planted by the late Professor E. W. Hilgard, University of California, that are now thirty years old and are annually producing regular crops of pods. The cold wave of January, 1913, was the severest frost in thirty years. Trees growing as far north as Biggs, Butte County, were somewhat injured but have fully recovered. I think this may be considered, perhaps, the northern range of the tree in California. In most parts of California, the tree must be planted in the least frosty localities, which are usually not far from the sea, or in the citrus belt of the Sierra foothills. The tree will certainly endure as much frost as the orange, but for the reasons mentioned above may fail to produce its crops of pods. However, it is a beautiful tree and is worth growing for ornament and can be successfully grown over a large part of California, and where the conditions are favorable it will be a very profitable producer of pods, which are equal in nutrients to barley for all kinds of stock and even for poultry when ground."
Mr. G. P. Rixford in another letter of February 26, 1917, said:
"I have no doubt there are large areas about and above the citrus belt where the tree could be planted with reasonable expectations of success."
