The method of drying and packing the raisin is peculiar and well worth a brief description. When the grape reaches a certain degree of ripeness and develops the requisite amount of saccharine matter a large force is put into the vineyard and the picking begins. The bunches of ripe grapes are placed carefully on wooden trays and are left in the field to cure. The process requires from seven days to three weeks, according to the amount of sunshine. This climate is so entirely free from dew at night that there is no danger of must. The grape cures perfectly in this way and makes a far sweeter raisin than when dried by artificial heat. When the grapes are dried sufficiently the trays are gathered and stacked in piles about as high as a man's waist. Then begins the tedious but necessary process of sorting into the sweat boxes. These boxes are about eight inches deep and hold 125 pounds of grapes. Around the sorter are three sweat boxes for the three grades of grapes. In each box are three layers of manila paper which are used at equal intervals to prevent the stems of the grapes from becoming entangled, thus breaking the fine large bunches when removed. The sorter must be an expert. He takes the bunches by the stem, placing the largest and finest in the first grade box, those which are medium sized in the second grade, and all broken and ragged bunches in the third class. When the boxes are filled they are hauled to the brick building known as the equalizer. This is constructed so as to permit ventilation at the top, but to exclude light and air as much as possible from the grapes. The boxes are piled in tiers in this house and allowed to remain in darkness for from ten to twenty days. Here they undergo a sweating process, which diffuses moisture equally throughout the contents of each box. This prevents some grapes from retaining undue moisture, and it also softens the stems and makes them pliable.
From the equalizing room the sweat boxes are taken to the packing room. Here they are first weighed. The first and second grades are passed to the sorter, while the third grade raisins are placed in a big machine that strips off the stems and grades the loose raisins in three or four sizes. These are placed in sacks and sold as loose raisins. The higher grades are carefully sorted into first and second class clusters. After this sorting the boxes are passed to women and girls, who arrange the clusters neatly in small five pound boxes with movable bottoms. These boxes are placed under slight pressure, and four of them fill one of the regular twenty pound boxes of commerce. The work of placing the raisins in the small boxes requires much practice, but women are found to be much swifter than men at this labor, and, as they are paid by the box, the more skillful earn from $2 to $3 a day. It is light, pleasant work, as the room is large, cool and well ventilated, and there is no mixing of the sexes, such as may be found in many of the San Francisco canneries. For this reason the work attracts nice girls, and one may see many attractive faces in a trip through a large packing house. One heavy shouldered, masculine-looking German woman, who, however, had long, slender fingers, was pointed out as the swiftest sorter in the room. She made regularly $3 a day. The assurance of steady work of this kind for three months draws many people to Fresno, and the regular disbursement of a large sum as wages every week goes far to explain the thrift and comfort seen on every hand.
The five pound boxes of grapes are passed to the pressing machine, where four of them are deftly transferred to a twenty pound box. The two highest grades of raisins are the Dehesa and the London layers. It has always been the ambition of California's raisin makers to produce the Dehesa brand. They know that their best raisins are equal in size and quality to the best Spanish raisins, but heretofore they have found the cost of preparing the top layer in the Spanish style very costly, as the raisins had to be flattened out (or thumbed, as it is technically called) by hand. In Spain, where women work for 20 cents a day, this hand labor cuts no figure in the cost of production, but here, with the cheapest labor at $1.50 a day, it has proved a bar to competition. American ingenuity, however, is likely to overcome this handicap of high wages. T.C. White, an old raisin grower, has invented a packing plate of metal, with depressions at regular intervals just the size of a big raisin. This plate is put at the bottom of the preliminary packing box, and when the work of packing is complete the box is reversed and the top layer, pressed into the depressions of the plate, bears every mark of the most careful hand manipulation. Mr. Butler used this plate for the first time this season, and found it a success, and there is no question of its general adoption. Every year sees more attention paid to the careful grading of raisins, as upon this depends much of their marketable value. The large packing houses have done good work in enforcing this rule, and the chief sinners who still indulge in careless packing are small growers with poor facilities. Probably the next few years will see a great increase in the number and size of the packing houses which will prepare and market most of Fresno's raisin crop. The growers also will avail themselves of the co-operative plan, for which the colony system offers peculiar advantages.
Geometrical progression is the only thing which equals the increase of Fresno's raisin product. Eighteen years ago it was less than 3,000 boxes. Last year it amounted to 1,050,000 boxes, while this year the product cannot fall below 1,250,000 boxes. New vineyards are coming into bearing every year, and this season has seen a larger planting of new vineyards than ever before. This was due mainly to the stimulus and encouragement of the McKinley bill, which was worth an incalculable sum to those who are developing the raisin industry in California. Besides raisins, Fresno produced last year 2,500,000 gallons of wine, a large part of which was shipped to the East. The railroad figures show the wealth that is produced here every year from these old wheat fields. The dried fruit crop last year was valued at $1,123,520; raisins, $1,245,768; and the total exports were $8,957,899.
The largest bearing raisin vineyard in Fresno is that of A.B. Butler, who has over 600 acres in eight year-old vines. The pack this year will be fully 120,000 boxes. As each box sells for an average of $1.75, the revenue from this vineyard will not fall far below a quarter of a million. One of the finest places in the county is Colonel Forsythe's 160-acre vineyard, from which 40,000 boxes are packed. Forsythe has paid so much attention to the packing of his raisins that his output commands a fancy price. This year he wanted to go to Europe, so he sold his crop on the vines to a packing house, receiving a check for $20,000. These, of course, are the great successes, but nearly every small raisin grower has made money, for it costs not over 1½ cents per pound to produce the raisin, and the price seldom falls below 6 cents per pound. Good land can be secured in Fresno at from $50 to $200 per acre. The average is $75 an acre for first-class raisin land that is within ten miles of any large place. It costs $75 an acre to get a raisin vineyard into bearing. In the third year the vines pay for cultivation, and from that time on the ratio of increase is very large. Much of the work of pruning, picking, and curing grapes is light, and may be done by women and children. The only heavy labor about the vineyard is the plowing and cultivating. Fresno is a hot place in the summer, the mercury running up to 110 degrees in the shade, but this is a dry heat, which does not enervate, and, with proper protection for the head, one may work in the sun all day, without any danger of sunstroke.
The colony system, which has been brought to great perfection around Fresno, permits a family of small means to secure a good home without much capital to start with. Where no money is paid for labor, a vineyard may be brought to productiveness with very small outlay. At the same time there is so great a demand for labor in the large vineyards, that the man who has a five or ten acre tract may be sure of work nearly all the year. In some places special inducements have been held out to people of small means to secure a five-acre vineyard while they are at work in other business. One colony of this sort was started eighteen months ago near Madera, in Fresno County. A tract of 3,000 acres was planted to Muscat grapes, and then sold out in five and ten acre vineyards, on five years' time, the purchaser paying only one-fifth cash. The price of the land was $75 an acre, and it was estimated that an equal sum per acre would put the vineyard into full bearing. Thus, for $750, or, with interest, for $1,000, a man working on a small salary in San Francisco will have in five years a vineyard which should yield him a yearly revenue of $500. From the present outlook there can be no danger of over-production of raisins, any more than of California wine or dried fruits. The grower is assured of a good market for every pound of raisins he produces, and the more care he puts into the growing and packing of his crop, the larger his returns will be. For those who love life in the open air, there is nothing in California with greater attractions than raisin growing in Fresno County.—N.Y. Tribune.
COLD AND MORTALITY.
By Dr. B.W. RICHARDSON.
During the seven weeks of extreme atmospheric cold in which the last year ended and with which the present year opened, every one has been startled by the mortality that has prevailed among the enfeebled and aged population. Friends have been swept away in a manner most painful to recall, under the influence of an external agency, as natural as it is fatal in its course, and over which science, as yet, holds the most limited control.