Seventy Years on the Frontier Part 21

With experimenting and cultivating, varieties of roses have multiplied by hundreds; and rose culture, like everything else in this nineteenth century, has become a science.

Roses are like children, requiring warmth and affection. In a mild climate, where the seasons do not vary greatly in regard to temperature, the rose outvies tradition itself, and unfolds and matures with a regularity quite astonishing.

California climate is nature's elected home for roses. In almost any portion of the State removed from the immediate harsh influences of the coast, roses revel, from the tiniest boutonniere rose, with its pert little face, to that great l.u.s.ty fellow, big as a large saucer and as hardy as a cabbage.

To the old residents, no rose in California appeals more to the poetical sense than the old Castilian, one of the oldest varieties in the State, and one now greatly despised by its more fortunate and voluptuous sisters. The fragrance of this rose is incomparable, its color an intense glowing old pink, its foliage painfully disappointing. Having such a vigorous and healthy trunk and l.u.s.ty system of roots, the Castilian is employed largely to graft other stock upon.

An ideal climate should produce nothing but ideal forms. This natural and just hypothesis is amply proven in presenting the full array of California roses as evidence. What better cla.s.s of evidence could be desired?

There are several general groups into which California roses are usually divided: Tea roses, Bourbon roses, hybrid perpetual roses, China or Bengal roses, moss and climbing roses.

Of these cla.s.ses, but several can be mentioned. Roses, as a theme, are practically inexhaustible, and the few kinds that appeal most strongly to the writer's sympathies will receive a pa.s.sing word.

A rose-covered cottage, the material expression of peace, lowliness, beauty, and picturesqueness; a picture that most of us mirror in our minds in youth as connected with great and simple happiness. Many of the old Spanish houses of California are overrun with climbing roses. These old houses, simple in style of architecture, broad and square in appearance, are inviting abodes for the clinging loveliness of California's climbers.

Some fine April morning take a little trip to San Rafael, one of San Francisco's suburban villages. In this hill-girth town blooms the fairest rose of all the climbers. Some call it the "San Rafael Rose,"

others the "Beauty of Blazenwood."

The trunk rises bare and st.u.r.dily from the ground; as it approaches the top of a porch it spreads and bursts forth into a cloud of tawny yellow loveliness. Each rose presses hard upon its neighbor until special fancy is lost in the bewildering ma.s.s of bloom.

In this rose, the palest cream tint to the richest glowing apricot tones are observable. Frequently here a dash of color almost vermilion is discovered; there a long slender-necked bud thrusts forth its head, as in derision to its closely-packed companions.

These roses are not very double, and a ma.s.s of their bloom presents features of ragged, wild grace; the vivid colors enthrall, hasty steps are slackened to gaze at this golden corona of smiling April.

The brilliant William Allen Richardson, the mellow-toned and sweet-breathed Salina Forrester, the l.u.s.ty-growing and superb bearing Reve d'Or, the daintily flowering and enameled-leaved single white Cherokee, the prolific blooming and tiny-flowered Lady Banksia, and California's old stand-by, the Lamarque, a profusely bearing, many petaled white rose, perfect in all stages of development, and very handsome foliage.

In many of the old towns of California may be seen rose trees of really enormous size.

The writer saw a d.u.c.h.esse de Brabant rose tree in Colusa County at least nine feet high and thirty feet or more in circ.u.mference. It was covered with hundreds of silvery pink roses; the trunk looked scraggy, and was probably twelve inches in circ.u.mference. Such a case is rare, however.

The Loretta is a rose of exquisite texture, of a creamy tone, and petals as clear-cut and dainty as a cameo. Too much praise can not be showered upon this long-stemmed vigorous grower. Such a galaxy of beautiful roses, each clamoring for recognition, that the only way to render justice is to stop right short and write nothing more.

The La France roses, Perle de Gardin, Marie Van Houtte, Archduc, Charles Catharine Mermet, Homer, Papa Gontier, Jacqueminot, and hundreds of others that nothing short of a book can satisfy their vanity and express their many graces.

The western coast of Europe and the western coast of America have about the same annual mean temperature--50 Fahrenheit, with a limit of 51 30" of north lat.i.tude.

The Pacific Coast has greatly the advantage over western Europe, in that the extremes of heat and cold are nearer together, a characteristic that is attributable to two paramount causes: Firstly, the j.a.panese current emanating from the Indian Ocean. The main body of this heated water sweeps toward the west coast of America, turns easterly and southerly, helping to produce a delightful insular climate along the coast of Oregon and California. Secondly, the mountain barriers upon the east and north; the sheltering influences of the Sierra Nevadas and Cascade mountains as they reach the coast of Alaska encircling its southern and western coasts, thus cutting off the polar winds that would otherwise flow over Oregon and California.

The State possesses three distinct climates, that of the coast, valleys, and mountains, similar in the matter of seasons, but otherwise totally dissimilar.

Degrees of lat.i.tude have no bearing upon fruit culture in California, for it is an ascertained fact that fruits ripen earlier in the north than in the south of the State.

Horticulture and geographical situations have nothing in common. In other regions one is quite dependent upon the other, but in California horticulture laughs at geographical boundaries.

These surprising conditions depend wholly upon topography, and consist not in parallels of lat.i.tude, but by topographical curves varying in direction and governed by deposit and natural formation, alt.i.tude, rainfall, and temperature.

What is known as the Citrus Belt of California is a great valley lying between the Coast Range on the west and the Sierra Nevadas on the east, and runs in a direction northwest to southeast, and extends from Red Bluff on the north to the Tejon Mountains on the south. The total area is about 17,200 square miles. This great valley contains about one-half of all the fruit trees and a third of all the vines in the State. Within the limits of this belt to the northernmost boundaries, in favored spots the orange flourishes side by side with the apple.

Immense tracts of this great valley are used for agricultural and pasturage purposes, and, as yet, orchards occupy but an insignificant area of this immense valley.

Several characteristics of the California climate and soil conjoin not only to produce glorious flowers, both wild and cultivated, but the greatest possible variety of fruits and berries. The abundant heat, almost perennial sunshine, and dry atmosphere, together with the fine adaptability of the soil and the great length of the growing season, join forces to produce fruits of superior size and excellence. The trees are amazingly prolific bearers, and also produce mammoth fruit.

All conscientious horticulturists resort to the "thinning out" process in order to preserve the quality and size of what they allow to remain on the trees.

The fruit industry in California, in spite of the immense crops matured every year, is but in its infancy. Millions of trees and vines are not yet in bearing, or only yielding third, fourth, and fifth year crops.

Since the formation of the Fruit Growers' Union in 1881, when the first law was enacted to protect California horticulturists, there has been steady progress and practical expenditure of brains and money to further the interests, in every way possible, of the fruit growers of California.

Horticulture has been reduced to a science by disseminating knowledge and a hearty cooperation of fruit growers to extend the interests of the State in every way possible.

The history of horticulture in the State of California almost up to the present time has been one of experimenting, ascertaining the adaptability of the soil to certain kinds of fruits, and testing what European and Eastern trees do well in this climate, for many varieties make utter failures, while others are improved beyond recognition.

Californians have had to learn also that a horticultural precedent has been established here, independent of what obtains in other countries.

Although ideas and methods have been gleaned from abroad, application to local and special needs have metamorphosed them to a great extent.

Hap-hazard planting in California is humbug unless wedded to Yankee shrewdness.

Know your soil and its elements, the atmosphere, heat, and moisture and exposure; then ascertain what fruits do well under those limitations.

Clear your land, plow and sow a crop of something to mellow up the soil, the next year plant your young trees. Climate will be your fellow-worker and steadfast friend. Nine-twelfths of the year a man can sit down and watch nature work. The man who complains of climate in California should be banished from this paradise, for even the golden fruit of Hesperides would be but clay to one whose birthright is discontent.

What will const.i.tute California's future glory will be the division of the lands into small holdings of from twenty acres up to about two hundred acres; where owners give their personal supervision; where the excellence of the fruits should be the consideration, over and above the profits; where men who resort to practices in the business that cheapen the standard of fruits should be forced out of the market; where every man works for the good of the whole; where the pride of the horticulturist, and not the greed of the speculator, obtains, and where the specialist and student flourish. If these conditions will not make California the greatest fruit-producing country on earth, then human ingenuity is at fault, and not climate.

Many a tourist in coming to San Francisco, and it might be said it is the exception when it is not so, has wondered if California fruits can make no better showing than the sour, half-ripened fruit he partakes of; last, but not least, the prices he pays for this fruit are so incredulously high that he wonders if it can be possible he can be eating imported fruit, and not the production of the California soil.

Then he compares his experience here with that abroad; at the forts along the Mediterranean for a cent or two he can entirely satisfy a robust appet.i.te with luscious fruit.

California fruit growers are so busy at present over their export trade that home consumption is relegated to the leavings, under the same principle a cobbler's children have no shoes.

Great things are expected of the olive industry of this State. Although the last returns showed but little over eleven thousand gallons of oil from the last crop, there are thousands upon thousands of young trees not yet in bearing. The oil produced is of a superior quality, and leads the sanguine to believe that the olive crown will yet rest upon our brows.

Fruit curing is, and will continue to be, one of the first industries of the State. The figures for the season just pa.s.sed will aggregate 48,700,000 pounds of dried fruit, nearly four-fifths of which will represent French prunes; this is but a mere bagatelle to what the crop will be several years hence.

The prune industry is centered in Santa Clara County; the biggest prune orchard in the State is now in the Salinas Valley, San Luis Obispo County. In this orchard there are 300 acres of prune trees planted in a body, representing 324,000 trees. Prune trees make such quick returns, four-year-old trees bear heavily.

All temperate zone and semi-tropical fruits are raised with equal facility. Berries do superbly; strawberries, however, are too often forced.

Fruits in California, where irrigation methods are too much employed, depreciate in quality; the fine flavor is sacrificed for the early ripening--a too frequent method of producers, that should be cried down.

Flavor is what makes fine fruit. Size and beauty do much in their way, but flavor is the nectar of the G.o.ds. Size and beauty const.i.tute the sh.e.l.l, flavor is the subtle spirit that animates it.

In many localities the orchards are merely cultivated, that is, plowed and harrowed three or four times a year, but never irrigated artificially. In portions of the State where midsummer irrigation is required, and where the country presents a level surface, as in Yolo County, whole orchards are flooded with an abundant supply of water.

The raisin of late years has received a greater impetus than any other fruit in the State. The ease with which raisin vines are propagated, the early profits, immense crops, and excellent prices induce hundreds to engage in the industry. About a thousand acres are set to raisin vines.

Fresno County is the center of this industry. Over 50,000,000 pounds were produced this year, and one-third only of the vines are in bearing.

The orange crop was enormous; lemons, figs, apricots, nuts, pears, peaches, and cherries each and all have made excellent records for themselves.

The shipping record for the year 1890 was 16,191 car-loads, which would make a continuous train of cars 123 miles long.

The report of the State Board of Horticulture says: "It is a significant fact that while our wheat output has not materially increased from 1880 to 1890, our fruit output has increased more than thirty times, and is growing with great rapidity. While the showing here made still keeps California in the front rank of wheat-growing States, being third in the rank, it demonstrates the great advantages of the State as a fruit-producing country.