THE ORANGE GROVES OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
Pasadena, California, Jan. 4, 1902.
Dear Friend Will: I was very glad to receive your letter, and much surprised to know that you are living on a farm. I am glad that you described the raising of cranberries, for I did not know much about it before. When I told my teacher about getting the letter, she asked me to read it in the geography class and to show the pictures. I asked our grocery-man where he gets his cranberries, and found that some of them came from Wareham.
You are having cold weather now, I know. Is the skating good? I have not seen ice as thick as window glass since we came to California, except that delivered by the iceman. Just now there is a beautiful covering of snow on the mountains a few miles north and east of town. Just think of picking roses and callas with snow in plain sight! The snow never remains more than a day or two on these mountains.
Soon after we came to Pasadena, father bought an orange grove of twenty-five acres. We are picking the fruit now. People began to pick oranges several weeks ago, and the work will continue all winter.
Orange trees are planted about twenty feet apart, but the groves do not look as apple orchards do in the East, for no grass is allowed to grow in them.
The best orange section is east of here, near Redlands and Riverside, but some good fruit is raised near Pasadena also.
Father keeps our trees pruned down rather low, so that it is easier to pick the oranges than it would be if they were allowed to grow very tall.
Orange raising is like cranberry growing in one way—the land must be irrigated in each case. Here the water is piped from the mountain streams and from tunnels. We form basins about ten feet square around each tree and fill them with water. Most of our irrigating is done during the summer, as the winter is our rainy season. You would not call it a very rainy time. Our average is about twenty inches for the whole year.
The trees in our grove have been set out about six years, and they are bearing nicely now. Orange trees begin to bear when they are four years old; so, you see, we have to wait a little longer for a crop than you do for a crop of cranberries. It costs a good deal to start an orange grove. Trees cost from one dollar to one and one-half dollars each at the nurseries. A few years ago they sold for twenty cents each.
I wish that you could see the trees when they are in full blossom, and also when they are loaded with the golden fruit. I am going to put some orange blossoms into the envelope, but I am afraid they will not reach you in very good condition. They are very fragrant, and you can smell their perfume some distance from a tree in blossom.
To-day we picked about two hundred and fifty boxes of oranges. We always speak of picking them, although they are not picked, but cut. You see, if they were picked off, the part where the stem pulled off would soon begin to decay.
We take a wagon load of fruit boxes, and, while father drives slowly between the rows of trees, I throw them off.
Fig. 56.—Picking Oranges in California.
Each picker carries a sack slung over one shoulder, and as fast as he cuts off an orange, he drops it into the sack. The sacks are emptied into the boxes, and these are loaded on to the wagon. Father pays five cents a box for picking, and a good picker will gather about forty boxes in a day.
We sell most of our oranges to fruit companies. These companies pack and ship the fruit. At the packing houses the oranges are placed in tubs of water and scrubbed with small brushes. Many women, girls, and boys work at this. The washing is to take off dirt, and also scale.
Fig. 57.—Grading and Packing Oranges.
After the oranges are washed, they are placed in a sort of trough which is highest at the end near the tub. They roll down this trough to the grader. This is a machine so arranged that the oranges pass through different openings according to their size, and come out sorted.
In the warehouse close by they are wrapped and packed. Chinamen often do this work. Each orange is wrapped in a separate piece of paper, which has the brand of the company stamped upon it. It is then packed firmly in a box. A certain number of oranges of each grade fill a box, ninety-six of the largest grade, and about two hundred of the smallest. Those which are too small, as well as the imperfect oranges, are rejected. These are called culls. Sometimes these are sold for a low price, and sometimes they are thrown away by wagon loads.
After the boxes are filled, they are placed in special fruit cars and hurried to St. Louis, Chicago, New York, Boston, and other cities.
Yes, the Weather Bureau is of great help to fruit growers. Of course we have very little winter here, but oranges will not endure much cold. The mercury falls below the freezing point but a few times each season. On New Year's Day the temperature here was fifty-eight degrees. I looked up the Boston temperature for the same day and found that it was only four degrees above zero. When the Bureau predicts a sharp freeze, the farmers build small fires in their orchards, or turn on a good deal of water. The fires are built in small wire baskets. They make a smudge instead of a flame. The people in the raisin districts watch the weather reports pretty closely, for rain injures the drying grapes.
Growers have to spray or fumigate the trees to destroy the scale that I spoke of which is a great enemy of the orange, to kill the insects, and to wash off dirt. This is sometimes done by putting a great piece of canvas over the tree, forming a sort of tent which prevents the fumes from escaping. It was found that the ladybugs would eat the scale and so they were brought into California from the East. They do a great deal of good, but still we have to spray the trees.
Orange trees are raised from the seed, and the trees produced in this way are called seedlings. By budding, a fruit much better than the oranges grown on the seedling tree has been produced. There were five acres of seedlings in our grove, and father budded the trees. He cut off the limbs rather close to the trunk of the tree. Then he slipped buds from navel trees into cuts made through the bark in the end of each limb left on the tree. He then wound cord tightly about the limb and put on some wax. After a time a new growth started out where these buds were placed. These new branches will bear much improved fruit.
We have a very fine variety of oranges called Washington Navels. Trees of this variety were obtained by our government from Brazil. Two of these were brought to Riverside, a town about seventy-five miles east of Pasadena, and planted on a ranch belonging to a Mr. Tibbits. They did well, and all of the trees of this variety in Southern California were obtained from these two through budding. These trees are still living.
California and Florida are the two important orange-growing states of our country. Father says the industry is much older in Florida than in our state. Florida growers can ship their fruit to market much cheaper than we can. It costs us ninety cents for each box.
Mexico, the West Indies, Italy, southern France, and Spain are also orange producers. These countries have the advantage of cheap labor, father says.
I wish that you could visit us. We would have fine times, I am sure.
The next time I write I will tell you about some of the other fruits raised in California.
Your sincere friend,
Frank.