Chapter XIV. — The Golden Apples of the Hesperides
The orange, like many other of California’s most valuable products, was brought into the country by the patient, far-seeing padres. Orange, lemon, and citron, those three gay cousins of royal blood, traveled together, and soon were to be found in many of the mission gardens. The most extensive of that early planting was an orchard at San Gabriel, set out by Padre Sanchez in 1804. In the height of its prosperity, this mission is recorded as having two thousand three hundred and thirty-three fruit trees, a large proportion of which were orange trees. San Fernando had sixteen hundred trees. San Diego had its orange orchard: how many trees is not recorded, but its olive grove numbered five hundred and seventeen flourishing trees. Santa Inez had nearly a thousand trees. As early as 1800 Santa Barbara and San Buenaventura also had valuable orchards.
Outside the missions the first orange trees in any number were planted in 1834, the famous Wolfskill grove in 1841. By 1862 there were about twenty-five thousand trees of this variety in the state, and two thirds of these belonged to Wolfskill, of Los Angeles. A little later several large orchards were planted in the region around the Mission San Gabriel. In Riverside, often called the mother of orange culture in the state, the first seeds were planted in 1870, the first trees from these seeds in 1873, and from that period is dated the beginning of extensive planting. This was largely the work of colonists. About the time the orchards came into bearing, the Southern Pacific and the Santa Fe Overland were completed, so that an Eastern market was gained for the fruit, with the result that the new industry fairly bounded forward. So much was sometimes made from an acre of trees that it seemed as though people could not get land and plant fast enough. Occasionally an income was reported of three thousand dollars from an acre, and eight hundred to one thousand dollars per acre was not an uncommon crop.
Although at this time there were a few orange trees in the middle and northern parts of the state, for many years it was supposed that only the southern country could raise this fruit suitable for the market, but to-day people know better. Excellent oranges are grown as far north as Shasta, and Butte County, which leads in the northern orange culture, has a number of large and valuable orchards. From Tulare County and other parts of the valley of the San Joaquin, choice fruit is being shipped to the markets of the East. From San Diego all the way up the state one may find trees of the citrus family flourishing; still, whether north or south, in planting an orange orchard, the greatest care has to be taken in the choice of location. Jack Frost is the enemy to be avoided, and generally in any strip of country the lower lands are the ones he visits first. So the highlands are preferred, and even here the currents of air must be studied. A strong, uninterrupted, downward sweep of air from the snowcovered mountains will often, at night, drive away the needed warmth gathered during the day, so that land protected by some mountain spur which makes an eddy in the current is the best for this heat-loving fruit.
There are several popular varieties of the orange. The Valencia late is being planted by many in preference to others because, besides being a fine fruit, it keeps well, ripening when the days begin to be long and hot, and is therefore doubly welcome. The sweet orange from the Mediterranean country, and the St. Michael, with its paper rind, are also favorites, as are the delicious little Mandarin and Tangerine varieties, with their thin skin and high flavor; but the king of them all is the Washington navel, which has gained for the state its high position as an orange-raising territory. This is not a new variety, though many may believe it so. A book published in Rome over three hundred years ago gives an interesting description and pictures of this and other kinds of oranges and the way they should be raised. The title of this rare old volume is “Hesperides, or about the Golden Apples, their Culture and Use.” Among its many fine illustrations is one of Hercules receiving the golden apples. Another shows the bringing of the fruit to Italy by a body of nymphs and goddesses in Neptune’s car. Mr. Charles F. Lummis has translated portions of the book in the California magazine Out West.
On its travels the navel orange finally reached Bahia, Brazil, and there, sometime during the Civil War in the United States, a lady who, it is said, was the wife of the American consul, discovered the deliciousness of this fruit. So pleased was she that she determined to share her enjoyment with others; so upon her return to her own country, she described this orange to Mr. Saunders, head of the government’s experimental farm at Washington. He became interested in the subject, sent to Bahia, and had twelve navel trees propagated by budding. These were shipped to Washington, where they arrived safely, and were placed in the orangery there. They all grew, and from them a large number of trees were budded.
Still they had not reached California. Bringing them to the Pacific coast was also the work of a woman. Mrs. Tibbetts, wife of a fruit grower of Riverside, was visiting in Washington and to her Mr. Saunders presented two navel orange trees, which she brought home with her. They were planted beside her doorstep in Riverside. The trees grew rapidly, and when they bore fruit it did not take the California orange growers long to discover that here they had a treasure of more value than the largest nugget of gold ever found in the state.
It was at a citrus fair in Riverside in 1879 that this golden king first appeared before the world. Then from all over southern California came orange men to get buds from these trees. Back home they went with the precious bits of life. Acres of seedling oranges were quickly shorn of their green crowns. Cut, cut, went knife and shears till only the stock was left, and then into a carefully made slit in the bark was placed the navel bud. It soon sprouted, and everywhere one could see the stranger growing sturdily on its adopted stem. Thousands of buds were sold from the two parent trees until there were hundreds of thousands of their beautiful children growing all over the state, giving golden harvests.
If we owe to two ladies the success of orange culture in California, it was a third who saved the industry when ruin threatened it. For a while all went merrily with the orange grower; then in some way, from Australia, there came into the country an insect pest called the cushiony scale, which settled on the orange trees and seemed likely to destroy them. “What can be done to save our trees?” was the cry from the people of the southland. What they did was to bring from Australia a different visitor, the dainty bug called the ladybird. She was eagerly welcomed. No one dreamed of bidding her, in the words of the old nursery rhyme, “fly away home.” She was carried to the diseased orchards, where she settled on the scale, and as it was her favorite food, she soon had the trees clean again. In time other pests came to trouble vine and fruit growers, but it is interesting to know that scientists nearly always succeeded in finding some insect enemy of the troublesome visitor, which would help the horticulturist out of his difficulties.
In the business of orange-growing, success is due in a large measure to care in the picking, packing, and shipping of the fruit—care even in those little things that seem almost of no consequence. The more particular Californians are to ship only the best fruit in the best condition and properly packed, the higher prices will the fruit bring, the higher reputation the state gain.
The lemon industry comes closely second to the orange. This fruit does not need so much heat as does the orange, but neither can it stand so much cold. It needs more water, but it bears more fruit and can be marketed the year round. The lemons not sold as fresh fruit are made to yield such products as citric acid, oil of lemon, from which cooking essences are made, and candied lemon peel. In this latter branch of the trade, however, the citron is more generally used, though it is not of so delicate a flavor.
The pomelo, or grape fruit, is fast gaining in favor and increasing in value.
To the stranger who visits California the orange is the most interesting of trees. To pick an orange with her own hands, and to pin on her breast a bunch of the fragrant blossoms, is to an Eastern woman one of the most pleasant experiences of her visit to the Golden State.
In the history of the growth of southern California, and especially of its orange culture, the use of water on the soil plays a prominent part. It was the discovery that the most sandy and unpromising-looking land became a miracle of fertility when subjected to the irrigating stream, that caused the wonderful prosperity of the dry portions of the state.
Irrigation, which means the turning of water from a well, spring, or stream, upon land to promote the growth of plant life, has been used by mankind for thousands of years. In Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico, there are remains of irrigation canals made by people who lived so long ago that we know nothing of their history.
The padres who settled California were adepts in this science. In founding a mission they always chose its site near some stream, the water of which could be turned upon the cultivated fields; and the dams, canals, and reservoirs which the padres constructed were so well built that many of them have lasted until the present time.
It will seem strange to many people to learn that the highest-priced, most fertile farm lands in the United States are not to be found in the rich valleys of the Eastern states or the prairies of the middle West, but in the dry region between the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific Ocean. Colorado, which belongs to the land of little rain, has in proportion to its size the richest mines of any state in the Union, yet the product of its farms, all irrigated, equals the output of its mineral wealth.
All the flourishing towns of southern California depend for their wonderful prosperity upon the fertility of the irrigated country surrounding them.
Trees and plants require water for their growth, but they do not all need it in like quantity, nor at the same time; therefore, the scientific farmer on arid lands, where there is an abundance of water for irrigation, has an immense advantage over his Eastern brother who depends for water upon the rainfall alone.
While the valuable raisin crop of the Californian is drying in the sun and the slightest shower would damage, or perhaps ruin it, just beyond lies the orange orchard, the trees of which are suffering for water. The fruit, the size of a large walnut, is still hard and green, and must have an abundance of the life-giving liquid if it is to develop into the rich yellow orange, filled with delicious juice, which adorns the New Year’s market. How would our ranchman prosper if he depended upon rain? As it is, he furrows his orchard from its highest to its lowest level; then into the flume which runs parallel with the highest boundary of the grove he turns the water from pipe or reservoir, and opening the numerous little slide-doors or sluice-gates of the flume, soon has the satisfaction of seeing each furrow the bed of a running stream, the water of which sinks slowly, steadily, down to the roots of the thirsty trees. After the water has been flowing in this manner for some hours, it is shut off, for it has done enough work. In a day or two the ranchman runs the cultivator over the ground of the orchard, leaving the soil fine and crumbly and the trees in perfect condition for another six or eight weeks of growth.
The first attempts of the American immigrant at irrigation were very simple—just the making of a furrow turning the water of a stream upon his land. Then, as he desired to cultivate more land and raise larger crops, his ditches had to be longer, often having branches. Soon neighbors came in and settled above and below him. They too used of the stream; there was no law to control selfishness, so there were disagreements and bitter quarrels over the water. Lawsuits followed and sometimes even fighting and murders. The remedy for this state of things was found to be in a company ditch, flume, or reservoir, with the use of water controlled by fixed laws.
There are some crops, notably grapes, which are grown without irrigation. The grapevine, instead of being treated as a climber, is each year trimmed back to the main stem, which thus becomes a strong woody stalk, often a foot or more in circumference, quite capable of withstanding the heat and dryness of the atmosphere and of drawing from the soil all the nourishment needed for the fruit.
Wheat, barley, and oats, both as grain and as hay, are largely raised without irrigation. Olives, and many deciduous trees, by careful cultivation may flourish without water other than the rainfall; yet notwithstanding this, for a home in southern California, land without a good water-right is of little value.
The wealth of the region is in a great measure in its expensive water system, which, by means of reservoirs, dams, ditches, flumes, and pipes, gathers the water from the mountain streams and conveys it to the thirsty land below.
Chapter XV. — California’s other Contributions to the World’s Bill of Fare
By 1874 people in the Eastern states had begun to talk of California canned fruits. Apricots and the large white grape found ready sale, but California raisins, though on the market, were not in demand. That line from the old game “Malaga raisins are very fine raisins and figs from Smyrna are better,” represented the idea of the public; and figs, raisins, and prunes eaten in the United States all came from abroad. But how is it to-day?
Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners of our Eastern friends owe much to California. She sends the seedless raisins, candied orange and lemon peel, the citron and beet sugar for the mince pies and plum puddings. Her cold-storage cars carry to the winter-bound states the delicious white celery of the peat lands, snow-white heads of cauliflower, crisp string beans, sweet young peas, green squash, cucumbers, and ripe tomatoes. For the salads are her olives and fresh lettuce dressed with the golden olive oil of the Golden State. Of ripe fruits, she sends pears, grapes, oranges, pomegranates. For desserts, she supplies great clusters of rich sugary raisins, creamy figs, stuffed prunes, and soft-shelled almonds and walnuts. All these and other delicacies California gives toward the holiday making in the East.
But it is not only to the homes of the wealthy that she carries good cheer; to people who have very little money to spend, and those who are far away from civilization, as soldiers, surveyors, woodmen, and road-builders, California’s products go to help make palatable fare. To these her canned meats, fish, and vegetables, and canned and dried fruits, are very welcome.
The canneries and fruit-packing establishments of the state bring in many millions of dollars each year and give employment to a host of people, a large number of whom are women and young girls.
Most of the fruits California now raises came into the country with the padres. Captain Vancouver tells us that he found at the Santa Clara mission, at the time of his visit in 1792, a fine orchard consisting of apples, pears, peaches, plums, apricots; and at San Buenaventura all these with the addition of oranges, grapes, and pomegranates. Alfred Robinson describes the orchards and vineyards of San Gabriel mission as very extensive. Wine and brandy were made at most of the missions, San Fernando being especially noted for its brandy. Guadalupe Vallejo tells of bananas plantains, sugar cane, citrons, and date palms growing at the southern missions. Palm trees were planted “for their fruit, for the honor of St. Francis, and for use on Palm Sunday.”
Not only did the padres enjoy fresh fruits from their gardens, but raisins were dried from the grapes, citron, orange, and lemon peel were candied, and much fruit was preserved. It is not recorded that they had pumpkin pie in those days, but a small, fine-grained pumpkin was raised extensively for preserves. It is still a favorite dainty among the native Californians, and no Spanish dinner is complete without this dulce, as it is called. Spanish-American housewives excel their American sisters in the art of preserving. Pumpkin, peach, pear, fig, are all treated in the same manner, being first soaked in lye, then thoroughly washed and scalded in abundance of fresh water, and then cooked in a very heavy sirup. The result of this treatment is that the outside of the fruit is crisp and brittle, while the inside is creamy and delicious.
The first of California’s dried fruits to come before the public was the raisin. Raisins are merely the proper variety of grapes suitably dried. Some think that they are dipped in sugar, but this is not the fact. The only sugar is that contained in the juice of the grape, which should be about one fourth sugar. The only raisin grape for general use is the greenish variety called the Muscat. The rich purple or chocolate color of the raisin of the market is caused by the action of the sun while the raisin is being cured. If dried in the shade the fruit has a sickly greenish hue. The seedless Sultana is a small grape, fast coming into favor for a cooking raisin.
The proper planting of a raisin vineyard requires a large amount of care and labor. But the summer is one long holiday, as there is little to do to the vines from early May until August. Then comes picking time. From all the country round gather men and women, boys and girls, and the work begins.
To be a successful raisin grower and packer, one must take care in all little things. The workman who neglects to cut from the branch the imperfect or bad grapes, or who lays the fruit in the trays so that it will be in heaps or overlapped, is apt to be soon discharged. After about a week of exposure to the sun and air, the grapes are turned by placing an empty tray over a full one, and reversing the positions. Then after a few days longer in the sun, the fruit goes to the sweat-box, a hundred pounds to the box, and is placed in a room in the packing house, where it lies about ten days. The bunches go into this room unequally dried, with still a look and taste of grape about them, but after this sweating process they come out uniform in appearance, rich, sugary, tempting,—the raisins of commerce, with little suggestion of the fruit from which they came. Then they are boxed.
There are generally three grades: very choice clusters, ordinary and imperfect bunches, and loose raisins. Raisins of the third class are sent to the stemmer and a large proportion of them then go to the seeder. Seeding raisins for mother and grandmother at holiday times used to be the duty and pleasure of the older boys and girls of the household. But seeding is now done by machinery. A machine will seed on an average ten tons daily. Before entering the seeder the raisins are subjected to a thorough brushing, by which every particle of dust is removed. They are then run through rubber rollers which flatten the fruit and press the seeds to the surface; then through another pair of rollers, with wire teeth which catch and hold the seeds while the raisins pass on down a long chute to the packing room, where women and girls box them for market.
With all fruits the drying process is much the same, though peaches, apples, and pears are first peeled. California figs, when dried, sell well. This is a fruit which is growing in favor, whether fresh, preserved, or dried. Fruit canning is an interesting process. The fruit is not boiled in sirup and then placed in cans, as is frequently the custom in home preserving, but when peeled it is placed directly in the cans, in which it receives all its cooking and in which it is finally marketed.
The raising of beets and the converting of them into sugar form an industry which is growing rapidly, and is of the utmost importance to the people of the Pacific slope.
The canning of fresh vegetables is a new industry which is bringing into the state a steady stream of money, and in addition is proving a double blessing to thousands of people, both those who gain from it their living, and those who could not otherwise have vegetables for food. A sailor said recently that if he could not be a sailor he would do the next best thing—can vegetables for other sailors. When Galvez received the order from the king of Spain to found settlements in Upper California, one of the chief reasons for so doing was that fresh vegetables might be raised for the sailors engaged in the Philippine trade. To-day the Philippines use a large portion of California’s canned goods.
In the southern counties olive orchards are being extensively planted. Near San Fernando is the largest in the world, covering thirteen hundred acres. Doctors have said that a liberal use of California olive oil will do much to promote the good health of mankind, and it is thought by many that the manufacture of olive oil will be one of the greatest industries the state has known.
Nut raising is keeping pace with fruit in importance. To an Eastern person it seems strange to see nut-bearing trees cultivated in orchards; though profitable, this method does away with the pleasures of nutting parties.
California’s crystallized fruits are in constant demand, especially for the Christmas trade. This crystallizing is a process in which the juice is extracted and replaced with sugar sirup, which hardens and preserves the fruit from decay while still keeping the shape.
One sometimes reads the saying, “Fresno for raisins, Santa Clara for cherries and prunes, and the northern counties and mountain-ranches for apples.” But in fact, California’s fruit industries are well distributed over the state, and the really excellent work which is being done in all sections will still advance as the people learn more of the necessary details and methods.
In spite of mistakes and experiments the steady progress on the California ranches is being recognized. Of one of our leading fruit growers, Mr. Eliwood Cooper of Santa Barbara, the Marquis of Lorne writes in the Youth’s Companion: “He has shown that California can produce better olive oil than France, Spain, or Italy, and English walnuts and European almonds in crops of which the old country hardly even dreams.”
A history of California’s products would be incomplete without a reference to him who is called the “Wonder Worker of Santa Rosa.” “Magician! Conjurer!” are terms frequently applied to Mr. Luther Burbank, the man who is acknowledged by the scientists of the world to have done more with fruits and flowers than any other man. Mr. Burbank waves his wand, and the native poppy turns to deepest crimson, the white of the calla lily becomes a gorgeous yellow, rose and blackberry lose their thorns, the cactus its spines. The meat of the walnut and almond become richer in quality, while their shells diminish to the thinness of a knife blade.
Yet in these seeming miracles there is nothing of “black art” or sleight of hand. The experiments of this wonderful man, the surprising results he gains, are obtained, first by a close study of the laws of nature, then, where he desires change and improvement, by assisting her process, often through years of closest application and unceasing toil. He is a man of whom it is truthfully said, “He has led a life of hardships, has sacrificed self at every point, that he might glorify and make more beautiful the world around him.” Any boy or girl who knows something of how plants grow and reproduce themselves will find great pleasure in following Mr. Burbank’s simple methods.
It is only recently that his countrymen have begun to appreciate the work of this great naturalist. A short time ago a resident of Berkeley, a student and book-lover, one who knew Mr. Burbank but had given little attention to his productions, was in Paris. While there he had the good fortune to be present at a lecture delivered before a gathering of the most eminent scientists of Europe. In the course of his address the speaker had occasion to mention the name of Luther Burbank. Instantly every man in the audience arose and stood a moment in silence, giving to the simple mention of Mr. Burbank’s name the respect usually paid to the presence of royalty. It is a name now known in all the languages of the civilized world, and numbers of the wisest of the world’s citizens cross the ocean solely to visit the busy plant-grower of Santa Rosa.
Luther Burbank was born in Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1849, and while yet a lad his strongest desire was to produce new plants better than the old ones. His first experiment was with a vegetable. For the sake of getting seed, he planted some Early Rose potatoes in his mother’s garden. In the whole patch only one seed-ball developed, and this he watched with constant care. Great was his disappointment, therefore, when one morning, just as it was ready to be picked, he found that it had disappeared. A careful search failed to recover the missing ball, but as he thought the matter over, while at work, it struck Luther that perhaps a dog had knocked it off in bounding through the garden. Looking more carefully for it, he found the ball twenty feet away from the vine on which it had hung. In it were twenty-three small, well-developed seeds. These he planted with great care, and from one of them came the first Burbank potatoes. The wealth of the country was materially increased by this discovery; the wealth of the boy only to the amount of one hundred and twenty-five dollars, which he used in attending a better school than he had before been able to enjoy.
In 1875 Mr. Burbank, to secure, as he said, “a climate which should be an ally and not an enemy to his work,” moved to Santa Rosa, California. For ten years of poverty and severe toil he was engaged, for the sake of a livelihood, in the nursery business, making, in the meantime, such experiments as he had time for. During the next twenty years, however, Mr. Burbank was able to give nearly his whole time to his nature-studies. His energy is tireless, and his aim is to supply to humanity something for beauty, sustenance, or commerce better than it has possessed.
Perhaps among all his productions the greatest good to the world will arise from the spineless cactus. The scourge of the American desert is the cactus, commonly known as the prickly pear, the whole surface of which is covered with fine, needlelike spines, while its leaves are filled with a woody fiber most hurtful to animal life. When eaten by hunger-crazed cattle it causes death. After years of labor Mr. Burbank has succeeded in developing from this most unpromising of plants a perfected cactus which is truly a storehouse of food for man and beast. Spines and woody fiber have disappeared, leaving juicy, pear-shaped leaves, weighing often twenty-five or fifty pounds, which, when cooked in sirup, make a delicious preserve, and in their natural state furnish a nourishing, thirst-quenching food for domestic animals. The fruit of this immense plant is aromatic and delicate, and its seeds are at present worth far more than their weight in gold, since from them are to spring thousands of plants by means of which it is believed the uninhabitable portions of the desert may be made to support numberless herds of cattle.
Another of Mr. Burbank’s achievements is the evergreen crimson rhubarb, which is not only far less acid than the old variety, but richer in flavor and a giant in size.
The pomato, a tomato grown on a potato plant, is most interesting. The plant is a free bearer, having a white, succulent, delicious fruit, admirable when cooked, used in a salad, or eaten fresh as our other fruit.
The experiments with prunes conducted at the Santa Rosa ranch have been of the greatest value to the state. For forty years the prune growers of the Pacific slope had been searching for a variety of this fruit which would be as rich in sugar and as abundant a bearer as the little California prune of commerce, and yet of a larger size, and earlier in its time of ripening. Mr. Burbank with his famous sugar prune filled all these requirements, and revolutionized the prune industry of the state. Besides this triumph he has succeeded in obtaining a variety of this fruit having a shell-less kernel, so that the fruit when dried much resembles those which are artificially stuffed.
The flowers which Mr. Burbank has evolved by his methods, and those which he has simply enlarged and glorified, are far too numerous to be named here.
In 1905 a grant of ten thousand dollars a year was bestowed upon Mr. Burbank by the Carnegie Institution of Washington, D.C., for the purpose of assisting him in his experiments. Seldom has money been better placed.