The Raisin Industry: A practical treatise on the raisin grapes, their history, culture and curingEisen, Gustavus A.
History
The Raisin Industry: A practical treatise on the raisin grapes, their history, culture and curing
Eisen, Gustavus A.
Raisins; Viticulture -- California
As we turn again towards town, we pass the well-kept Goodman vineyard,
after which we enter the large Barton vineyard, now partly owned by an
English syndicate. The old 640 acres are nearly all in wine grapes,
while several hundred acres of young raisin grapes have lately been
added. One of the most extensive wine cellars in the State is found
here, all kept in splendid shape,--hardly a speck of dirt, not a foot of
waste land seen anywhere. The mansion is stately, situated on a small
hill surrounded by fine groves of gum-trees, evergreen hedges and
ornamental grounds. Should we care to go farther east, we might visit
the Eisen vineyard, where the first Muscats were planted in the county.
The famous avenue is half a mile long, and one of the most beautiful in
the State, lined on both sides with blooming and beautiful oleanders
alternating with poplars over a hundred feet high. We might also visit
the Locan vineyard and orchard, and admire the orange-trees, which speak
of what the country can produce in this line. But the time is too short;
we might travel a week over this level but beautiful country, and every
day, every minute, see something new and interesting among all these
vineyards, with their packing-houses, and raisins exposed on trays to
dry.
When we return to town, a visit to the packing-houses is one of the most
interesting that can be made. Of these packing establishments Fresno has
four or five, besides several in the colonies or in the larger
vineyards. Three of these packing-houses are the largest in the State.
The building of each one of them, though large, is full and overcrowded.
Women at long tables pack the raisins in boxes, at other tables men
weigh and assort raisins and take them out of the large sweatboxes in
which they left the field. At some tables fancy packing is done, and
women “face” the boxes by placing large selected raisins in rows on the
top layers. At another table the raisin-boxes are covered with fine
colored labels, then nailed and made ready for shipment. Some four
hundred men and women are busy with this work under one roof, all
earning wages of from one to two dollars a day each. We catch a glimpse
of the equalizing room, where fifty tons of raisins are stored at one
time for a week or more in order to become of even moisture, the floor
being sometimes sprinkled with water to make the air sufficiently moist.
As we go out we see the raisin-boxes already packed being loaded on cars
and shipped east by the train-load, from four to six such raisin trains
leaving every week, each train of from ten to twenty cars. On the other
side of the packing-house is a continuous row of teams from the country,
all loaded with raisins, brought by the country growers to the packers
in town. It takes a gang of men to receive, weigh and unload them. In
another department we see the large stemmer and grader, which runs by
steam, and stems and assorts from thirty to forty tons per day, the
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