Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1880-01-03

small fruit culture is being taken up,
brought under cultivation and planted into
orchards, and land in these localities has,
within the past two or three years, enhanced
in value from 100 to 200 per cent. Now
these are not the only localities favorable to
this culture. There are hundreds of other
places, now without name, in these foot
hills, all along from Butte to Los Angeles
county, with equally as good natural loca-
lions and with even better soils and more ia
dance can be had for the taking up-the only
disadvantage being that they are not provided
with railroad facilities for transportation.
Let these lands be appropriated and cultivated
in the vine and orange, as those in the vicinity
of the places named are being planted, and
an equal enhancement in value will very soon
follow, and railroads will come also when
freight is assured for their transportation.
There being no longer any question as to the
natural advantages of very large portions of
California for orange culture, it is in order to
inquire whether
ORANGE CULTURE WILL PAY
When the business is greatly increased and
the product is proportionately aug
mented. That the culture is at present very
profitable is attested By facts too plain to be
overlooked. During the past few years prop
erty generally in the southern counties has
been at a low figure and the times extremely
HILL I,,k Al 4
sion no orange orchards have been placed
upon the market, and none could be bought
at any price. This kind of property has uni
formlY remained, firm and unchanged. An
intelligent cultivator of this fruit in Los An
geles county, speaking of the business last year,
remarked: car orange orchard is a bank,
whose deposits are safe beyond question,
and whose dividends are regular, munifcent,
and, we might say, princely." In answer to
an inquiry of the Los Angeles Chamber of
Commerce in 1876, another well known or
ange cultivator made this statement in re-
gard to the results of his own experience ::
"By very careful estimates made in 1874,
of the crops en- an orchard of 1876 trees, 800 of
which were II years old from the seed 1.-THE bal
ance being too young to bear), Iobtained as d
net result, Overland above cost of transportion
to San Francisco, commissions on sales etc.,
$40 90 per tree, or an average of 81, 435 per
acre. | do not claim this amount as an
average crop or result, but l do think that
with proper care and attention the average
can be made to equal $1,000 per acre on
trees II years old. have seen trees on our
property that have yielded 8, 200 oranges per
tree, which oranges at $40 per thousand
would give per acre a result of 81, lao. The
average price for the past five years, to those
who have shipped their oranges, has been be-
tween $40 and S25 per thousand" The aver
age prices for oranges in San Francisco for
the past two years has been $50 so per thou
sand. A gentleman in old San Bernardino
has an orange orchard of eighty-three trees
to the acre, and the average sales per tree has
been 1000 oranges, sold at three cents apiece,
or $50 per thousand, equal to $50 per tree,
or 81 $50 per acre. The Wolfskill orchard in
Los Angeles, consisting of sixty acres of
DOoiAh5 OiSSSs ACdiiZCo lOI lJo OWLtT III lol o
the sum of $4,000. Gullesio speaks of trees
seen by him in Spain which yielded 1000
oranges per annum, and it is certified to
that one tree in the Sandwich Islands
produced 1900 oranges in one year.
These are of course somewhat exceptional
products, but they go to show tie POSSIBLE
ties of orange culture under favorable cir
cumstances and offer great inducements to
the creating of favorable circumstances by
| cultivators. Will the business continue to
pay? The oranges produced in California
now are all consumed within the State, and
| 100000 more are annually imported from
Tahiti and other islands, SO that until this
demand is satisfied there is already market
awaiting an increased production. By the
time this demand is supplied from our own
orchards it is certain that the increase in
population in the Pacific coast States will
create at least another equally increased de-
mand. But it is not to the Pacific coast
alone that we may look for a market for our
oranges when we have produced surplus
1t will be remembered that up to the time
when We had raised wheat in excess of home
consumption the price Of wheat was not as
steady and certainly remun srative as when
Liverpool merchants were assured that they
could draw on California for the supply of a
certain portion of their annual deficiencies
1t is an almost universal rule of commerce
that supply creates or discovers de-
mand. When Chicago, New York, Phila-
delphia, Boston and other Eastern cities can
be supplied with California oranges, their
merchants will look to California for that
supply just as certainly as the merchants of
Liverpool now look to California for her an.
nual surplus of wheat. There are good rea-
sons for this assertion other than commercial
reasons.
SUPERIORITY OF CALIFORNIA ORANGES.
California oranges are superior to either
the Florida, Louisiana or Havana Or
! anges in many respects, among which we
may mention in this connection their supe-
rior keeping qualities, which gives them
great advantages in commercial sense. The
New York Egening Post, speaking of some
oranges sent them from Los Angeles, saws !:
They are of remarkable fneness and of
favor which, without possessing the saccha-
rine sweetness of the Havana orange, is even
more rich, and, in consequence of the blend
ing OF its sweetness with little acidity, is
more agreeable. The orange of
Tyre, of Sidon and of Jaffa, is peculiarly
fine in size and quality, but it does not excel
in either respect that of Los Angeles" An
intelligent writer in New York journal.
comparing the LES Angeles oranges with
Others in that market, says: 'sThey combine
the qualities of the Florida, the Louisiana and
Havana oranges, having the size of the for
mer, the skin of the second, and the delicious
flavor of the latter. The trees are stronger
and bear more luxuriantly than either of the
above mentioned, and the fruit lasts longer
on the trees is better adapted for shipment
and market than the Florida orange, which
rots rapidly" The Cedar Keys Journal, of
Florida, speaking Of the orange business in
that State in 1873, says: 50 The markets were
crowded at the start with half-ripe fruit.
which no doub. caused, to some extent. the
low prices that ruled. The Florida
orange, while unsurpassed for its rich favor
and Siza will NOT laar, lop, A c.. n