_Drying and Curing._--The poorer qualities are simply dried on boards or on the roofs of the houses in the sun; but the fine and most valuable raisins are dried in the shade. When ripe, the bunches are carefully picked and taken to open sheds with thatched roofs, and there hung up to dry. The raisins are turned at intervals, and when ready are packed in twenty-five-pound boxes without any great care or skill. The best Huasco raisin sells at fifty cents per pound in the local market, and is decidedly the most high-priced raisin known. The best variety is scarce even in Chile, and in Chilean statistics I could not find any quoted. The following houses in Huasco are dealers in fruits and raisins: Juan Quijada, Ramon F. Martinez, and José Manuel Balmaceda. The export from the port of Huasco in 1885 amounted only to $685,853. How large a portion of this was raisins is not known. _CALIFORNIA RAISIN DISTRICTS._ A GENERAL REVIEW. _Early History._--While the planting of raisin grapes and the production of raisins in California dates back some thirty odd years, the raisin industry cannot be said to be as yet twenty years old. Already, in 1851, Col. Agoston Haraszthy grew Muscatel vines from seeds of Malaga raisins. On the 25th of March, 1852, he imported the Muscat of Alexandria from Malaga, and ten years later, during a visit to that place on September 27, 1861, he selected cuttings of the Gordo Blanco which afterwards were grown and propagated on his San Diego county vineyard. The same year he imported Sultana vines from Malaga, and white and red Corinth from Crimea. Col. Haraszthy was thus the first one to introduce the raisin-vines in this State. Another importation of the ovoid Muscat of Alexandria was made in 1855 by A. Delmas and planted at San José, according to a statement made by his son D. M. Delmas,[3] the prominent San Francisco lawyer. G. G. Briggs of Davisville also imported Muscatel grapes from Malaga in Spain; while R. B. Blowers of Woodland, Yolo county, started his raisin vineyard in 1863 from Gordo Blanco cuttings received from Col. Haraszthy. In 1876, W. S. Chapman, imported the best Muscatels from Spain for his colonists in the Central California Colony in Fresno, which proved in no way different from those already growing there. Who produced the first raisins in California will probably never be satisfactorily known. According to page 88 of the Report of the State Agricultural Society of California, 1863, cured raisins were exhibited by Dr. J. Strentzel at the State Fair in 1863.[4] The first successful raisin vineyards in the State were those planted by G. G. Briggs at Davisville in Solano county, and by R. B. Blowers at Woodland in Yolo county. Both these gentlemen grew the raisin grapes on a large scale, and shipped raisins extensively. The Briggs vineyard consisted mainly of Muscats of Alexandria, while the Blowers vineyard contained the Gordo Blanco. Both these vineyards produced raisins as early as 1867; but it