Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1873-12-01
CALIFORNIA FRUITS.
BY MRS. CARRIE YOUNG.

At the market places, in the. e,.cities, one
can find strawberries every month in the
year but they are not much sought for
out of the regular season which COM
mences the last week in April.
Wishing to succeed and reap the larg-
est profit from the smallest investment
of capital and labor, one can prepare the
land and furnish the plants, and the
flowing we'll, wind mill or ditch privilege
then 60 to sTyee' or the head of the
''Chinese house in Frisco, and bargain
for gang of Observation-Disclosures
more. according to the number of acres.
The men bargain to do all the work, from
setting of plants to picking the fruit
ready for market.
They board themselves in tents or
"sheds" as may be agreed on and
through their "Tyee," are supposed to
receive one half the gross receipts from
the sale of the crop. The owner or his
agent, receives the crop, consigns, or sells
it, pays the taxes, keeps up repairs, col
| lects, etc.
The past three years strawberry bust
ness has not been extravagantly profta-
BILE along the coast market places. In
Placer County, situated on either side
the G. P. R. r., by which fruit can be
shipped each p. m. at 4 o'clock to go
toward and through the snowy noun
tains, to Truckee, Reno, Virginia City,
Austin, and forty or fifty other mining
camps in Nevada, strawberry culture will
be increasingly profitable.
Hard berries are successfully shipped
by railroad 45O miles, then by stage
coach, 200 miles to Silver City, Idaho.
They arrive in good order, and are deli
cious, eaten beside snow drifts from ten
to thirty feet deep! We had such "a
feast, the 18th of May, 1872. The ber-
ries cost $l.5O pound, and were cooled
on snow banks said to be 80 feet deep.
Coming up through Placer County the
first week Of last May, we saw many
hundreds of cases of cherries and berries
that brought their owners from twelve to
thirty cents a pound, wholesale. The
railroad collects IL 1-2 cents, the mid
dlemen would at least double their money
hence strawberries at Reno and Vir-
ginia City brought fifty cents, four times
their oripinal cost
I Cherries have never been less than
20 cents at wholesale. Here is room
for splendid speculation. The birds
are the only enemy they have.
Red June and Astrachan apples are
early and command good price, aver
aging fors the mountain market three
cents pound. Six years old trees fire.
quently bring their lucky owners sixty
dollars tree. The red currant and
cherry currant and early Wilson black.
berry are equally profitable. Three acres
in seven or eight varieties of fruit is al
that one man can attend to. In picking
time, he will require two or three gooo
hands to help him. We know three
acre place that last year had seven rows
of Antwerp Red raspberry bushes. The
second year from the set, these sever
rows, one hundred and forty feetin length
each, yielded 1000 pounds of perfec
fruit, sold at wholesale at twenty cent
a quart or pound. They were cut bacl
to three feet in height, supported b.
trellises of pine poles; were mulche'
twice year with litter; cultivated be
tween the rows watered once a week
The third year the owner was positive hi
crop would be more than doubled. Th
) soil was 'slum" from the old minin
: bitches, we'll mixed with decomposin
: slate, the whole deposited by water o
rocky lodges and boulders.
The black July grape is earliest in tn
l market, and for table use has quick sal
at twenty, then fifteen and ten cents
: pound. Ditto, Flame -To-kay, and Ma
e aga Muscatelles.
: Peaches, plums and pears are so lare
a and luscious no language of ours coul
0 do them justice. The peach fruits
two years from the seed; plums and pea
q in three years. We had them all in Jul
+ at Salt Lake City, of California growtl
o .Apricots, nectarines, pomegranates all
% thrive but will never become as popul;
. with the people.
At and below Auburn the orange al
n fig pertect-the last yielding three GRO
o. per year. Thirty miles above, in Il
i snow line, the most delicious, fine graf
= ed and favored Rhode Island Greenin
and Spitzenburg apples grow. They I
tain their juices and crispness until M;
E. and are worth at that time five cents .
/ pound. just as soon as competition al
e. narrow gauge railroads shall reduce t
Id freight tariffs, San Francisco will CO
ld sumo all that can be put in the mark
as At present very few of these delicio
as snow-fruits find their way there Th
n' are frelghted to Truckee by wagons
n kept in cool cellars, and freighted
m to Virginia City, Carson and other can
mt and cities in the spring.
as The introduction of the .sAlden'' d
AZ ing houses will add much to the pro-
iio of orcharding and fruit culture.