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
change this system in time, or we will be in the same bad fix as they
were.
The improvement in Valencia raisins was entirely due to the energetic
efforts of English gentlemen. Mr. George Graham, agent for an English
firm, established himself in Valencia, investigated the raisin business,
and, seeing the true cause of the ruin, set himself to work to remedy
the same. He introduced better methods in growing, curing and packing;
and through his efforts a better price was paid for a better grade of
raisins, and it was not long before the raisin business was on an
entirely different footing. The object of the grower was from that on,
not only to increase the quantity, but to increase the quality as well.
To begin with, the raisins were shipped off-stalk or loose; but the
boxes were not faced. Now the raisin boxes are all faced, and the
raisins are carefully selected and assorted. As a consequence, the Denia
trade has of late years increased enormously, until at present all the
land available has been planted to raisins. There is at present but
little or no first-class raisin land left in Denia, and it looks as if
the raisin production there could not be further expanded.
_Export and Production._--Although the raisin industry had long existed
in the province of Valencia, it was only in late years that it assumed
an importance. They were already known as _Duracinae_ by the Romans.
Re-introduced or improved by the Arabs or Moors, it soon became a
prominent industry, and the export of raisins to England was already of
some consequence in the time of William and Mary. In the year 1638,
Lewis Roberts, in his merchant map of commerce, informs us that Denia
raisins cost eighteen rials or three shillings per hundred weight. In
1664, Gandia raisins were quite famous, and were known as Pasas. At the
end of the last century, the raisins from Denia and Liria reached forty
thousand quintals, or two thousand tons, distributed as follows: Spain,
six thousand; France, six thousand; England, twenty-eight
thousand,--equal to one million, four hundred and thirty thousand boxes,
forty thousand quintals, or two thousand tons. In 1862, the raisin
export from Valencia had dwindled down to seven thousand tons. In 1876,
it had again risen to nineteen thousand tons, and in 1883 to forty
thousand tons. Of these, nine hundred and seventy-nine thousand boxes
were exported to the United States, one million, three hundred and
eighty-five thousand were sent to England, and four hundred and
thirty-six thousand found their way to other parts of Europe and Spain.
In 1888, the yield was two million, three hundred and sixteen thousand
boxes of twenty-eight pounds each, equal to thirty-two thousand, four
hundred and twenty-four tons. If packed in twenty-pound boxes, this crop
would have equaled three million, two hundred and forty thousand, four
hundred boxes, or four times as much as California produced at the same
time.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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