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
here become quite an art. Some hedges have square, others roofed tops,
and at every corner there is a little pillar of cypress with diamond or
globular top, not at all artificial or stiff.
The vast majority of the plantations consist of orange groves. The color
of the trees is splendid, every leaf being bright and shining, and there
is no sign of smut or scale. The large and upright Seedlings are easily
distinguished from the smaller but bushy Navels. The tendency is now to
plant mostly the latter, and most of the old Seedling trees are being
budded over. The original Navel tree, which is the prime cause of the
prosperity of Riverside and of the fame of its oranges, is yet standing
by a modest cottage, which appears not to have kept pace with the times.
The tree is small, perhaps twelve feet high, having been constantly cut
back for buds. From this tree have sprung all the rest. No other Navel
tree imported from Brazil or Australia resembles it in quality of fruit
or in bearing capacity. It is probably a chance “sport” originally
imported by the Agricultural Department at Washington, its companion
trees being different in the most essential points which make this
variety so valuable and so famous. This beautiful and choice orange, now
generally known as the “Washington Navel,” is slightly oblong or
egg-shaped, and the skin is very smooth, with no ridges at the poles,
the latter being characteristic of the other Navel varieties. The crop
of Navels this year is good. Many growers expect from three to four
boxes to the tree, and, as each box brings from three to four dollars,
it is evident the business pays. The valuable and permanent improvements
everywhere show this to be the case; the account books of the grower
need not be searched to demonstrate it. Here and there we also see a
lemon orchard with its larger trees of a different green. A few years
ago many lemon orchards were dug up, as no one understood the secret of
saving the lemons till the warm season, when alone they can bring a good
price. But at last one of the growers wrung the secret from Nature, and
now buys up all the young lemons he can find and stores them away to be
used from six to ten months later, just when they are most in demand. In
company with that courteous horticulturist, the editor of the Riverside
_Press_, E. W. Holmes, we visited this gentleman, G. W. Garcelon. To him
is due much credit for having discovered the process. He presented us
with lemons of the small and proper size that had been picked green
eight months ago. They were equal to the best imported, both as to
smallness of size, acidity, thinness of skin and quality of juice. These
lemons bring now five dollars per box, at which price lemon culture
proves more profitable than that of the orange.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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