One Thousand Questions in California Agriculture Answered Part 15

Drying Plums and Prunes.

I have plum trees of various kinds that are loaded with fruit. I do not know if any are of the variety used for drying as prunes: I know nothing of the process of making or drying prunes. One man suggests that I dip them for four or live minutes in a 3 or 4 per cent solution of lye and then place them in the sun.

Dipping your plums is right providing they are very sweet, as they will dry like prunes without removing the pit. If they are plums that are commercially used for shipping, without enough sugar to dry as prunes, the pit must be removed. Drying in this way, you do not need to use lye, which is simply for the purpose of cracking the skin so that the moisture can be more readily evaporated. There is no danger in using the necessary amount of lye. Less is used than in making hominy.

The Sugar Prune.

What is the commercial value of the Sugar prune? Is there any other early ripening variety better than the Sugar?

It is selling very well as a cured prune, and growers in the northern bay counties especially have done so well that they are extending their plantings. It is coa.r.s.er in flesh than the French and generally flatter in flavor when cooked and thus falls below the ideal of a cured prune, but it has compensating characters, such as early ripening, with which no other prune compares. The Sugar is also valuable as a shipping plum to Eastern markets.

Glossing Dried Prunes.

Will you give the method for giving the gloss to dried French prunes?

There are various methods. One pound of glycerine to 20 gallons of water; a quick dip in the mixture very hot gives a good finish. Where a clear bloom rather than a shine, is desired, five pounds of common salt to 100 gallons of water, also dipped hot, gives a good effect. Some use a thin syrup made by boiling small prunes in water (by stove or steam) and thinning with water to produce the result desired. Steam cooking avoids bad flavor by burning. The salt dip is probably the most widely used.

Price of Prunes on a Size Basis.

Explain the grading in price of prunes. For instance, if the base price is, say, five and three-fourths cents, what size does this refer to, and how is the price for other sizes calculated? Also, what is the meaning of the phrase "four-size basis"?

Prunes, after being sold to the packer, are graded into different sizes, according to the number required to make a pound, and paid for on that basis. The four regular sizes are 60-70s, 70-80s, 80-90s, and 90-100s, which means that from 60 to 70 prunes are required to make a pound, and so on. The basis price is for prunes that weigh 80 to the pound. When the basis price is 5 3/4 cents, 80-90s are worth 1/4 cent less than this amount, or 5 1/2 cents. The next smaller size, 90-100s, are worth 1/2 cent less, or 5 cents, while prunes under this size are little but skin and pit and bring much less to the grower. For each next larger size there is a difference of 1/2 cent in favor of the grower, so that on the 5 3/4-cent basis 70-80s are worth 6 cents, and 60-70s 6 1/2 cents. This advance continues for the larger sizes, 30-40s, 40-50s, etc., but these quite often command a premium besides, which is fixed according to the supplies available and the demand for the various sizes. The sizes for which no premium or penalty is generally fixed are those from 60 to 100, four sizes, so that this basis of making contracts and sales is called the "four-size basis." The advantage that results in having this method of selling prunes can be seen by the fact that on a 5 3/4-cent basis the smallest of the four sizes will bring but 5 cents a pound, while 30-40s would bring, without any premium, 8 1/2 cents, and with 1 cent premium, 9 1/2 cents. This size has this season brought as high as 10 and 11 cents a pound. It may be noted here that no prunes are actually sold at just the basis price, as they are worth either less or more than this as they are smaller or larger than 80 to the pound. No matter what the basis price is, there is a difference of one-half cent between each size and the sizes nearest to it.

Pollinizing Plums.

How many rows of Robe de Sergeant prune trees should be alternated with the French prune (the common dried prune of commerce) to insure perfect fertilization of the blossoms?

The French prune is self-fertile; that is, it does not require the presence of other plum species for pollination of the blossoms. It is the Robe de Sergeant prune which is defective in pollination and which is presumably a.s.sisted by proximity to the French prune. If you wish to grow Robe de Sergeant prunes your question of interplanting would be pertinent, but if you desire only to grow French prunes you need not plant the Robe de Sergeant at all.

Cultivating Olives.

How deep should an olive orchard be plowed? I was told that by plowing deep I would injure my trees, in cutting up small rootlets and fibres which the olive extends through the surface soil. Is this so or not?

Plowing olives is like plowing other trees, the purpose being to get a workable soil deep enough to stand five or six inches of summer cultivation, usually. If you have old trees which have never been deeply plowed, you would destroy a lot of roots by deep plowing, and you should not start in and rip up all the land at once. You can gradually deepen the plowing, sacrificing fewer roots at a time, without injuring the trees if they are otherwise well circ.u.mstanced. Small rootlets and fibres in the surface soil do not count; they are quickly replaced, and if you do not destroy them, the whole surface soil, if moist enough, will be filled with a network of roots which will subsequently make decent working of the soil impossible.

Moving Old Olive Trees.

Would there be anything gained by transplanting old olive trees 6 to 8 inches in diameter over nursery stock? They would have to be shipped from Santa Clara to b.u.t.te county and grafted. Would they come into bearing any sooner and be as good trees? Could the large limbs be used to advantage? Would the fact that they are covered with s.m.u.t cause any trouble?

Old olive trees can be successfully moved a long distance by cutting back, taking up a ball of earth, and possibly a short distance with bare roots if everything is favorable. But do not for a moment think them worth such an outlay for labor, freight and hauling which such a movement as you mention involves. The trees on arrival would probably only be firewood, and if they lived, the time required in getting a good growth and grafting, etc., would perhaps be as great as in bringing a young tree of the right kind to bearing, and the latter would be a better tree in every way. Large limbs can be split and used as cuttings, but the tree would be growth on one side and decay on the other. Use the smaller limbs for hard-wood cuttings and the balance for firewood. The s.m.u.t shows that the trees are covered with scale insects and might indicate that it is better to burn up the whole outfit unless you learn to fight them.

Darkening Pickled Olives.

Is there anything that will make olives keep their black color when put into lye? When I put my first picking of ripe olives in lye, a large part of them turn green, the black leaving the fruit. My formula is one pound of lye to five gallons of water. Have you any better formula?

By exposing the olives to the light and air, either during the salting or immediately after, ripe olives may be given a uniformly black color.

Also, fruit which is less ripe and which shows red and green patches after processing with lye, becomes an almost uniform dark brown color.

To do this, the olives are removed from the brine and exposed to light and air freely for one or two days. Your lye was stronger than necessary. With ripe olives it is desirable to use salt and lye together to prevent softening, and the common prescription is two ounces of potash lye and four ounces of salt to the gallon of water after the bitterness is largely removed by using one or two treatments with two ounces of lye to the gallon without the salt. It is necessary to draw off the solution, rinse well, and put on fresh solution several times during the process to get the best results.

Seedling Olives Must Be Grafted.

Will olive trees grown from the olive seed be the right thing to plant?

Will they be true to the parent tree or will they have to be grafted?

Olives which a seedling olive tree will bear will be, as a rule, very inferior and generally of the type of the wild olive. All such trees must be grafted in order to produce any particular variety which you desire.

Olives, Oranges and Peppers.

We have been told that olive trees easily become infested with a fungus disease which they then impart to the orange tree. The same objection is raised to the planting of pepper trees. May this be true in some parts of the State and not in others?