Morning journal and courier., 1890-08-18
CORRESPONDENTS.
The Fruits Of California - Fine to Look at, and Good to Eat or Sell Farming.
 

The Fruits of California - Fine 10
 Look at, and Good to Eat or Sell
 Farming.
 PASADENA, California, Aug. 4. To the Editor of the JOURNAL AND COURIER:
 This is now the time of fruit with us, not that there is any particular time win ter or summer, when fruit is not more or less abundan. hereabouts. Strawberries in particular we have every month in the year, but now is the season of the greatest supply, and in variety, when we are flooded to overfowing with all sorts of good things. Loquats has come and gone, but apricots, nectarines, prunes, plums, grapes, black berries, raspberries, apples, pears, all these, of many varieties, together with long list of others are at present to be had in the greatest profusion. Even the small boy is supplied to satiety, so that he hardly casts wistful eye on the most overbur- dened orchard. This is partly one of con sequences of the abatement of the specula- tive fever, for now that there is no demand for city lots situated three or four miles out in the country, the owners have return ed to their legitimate business of farming and fruit raising, with the result that the Il much more than enough were it not for the drying process in which so many are | engaged at present, for go where you will | throughout the country you see everywhere I trays of fruit spread out in the sun to cure | and many busy hands find remunerative | employment.
 It is sight well worth seeing to look at | the prune trees which are so heavily laden with their purple fruit, and where they have not been properly attended to and re- lieved by thinning out they are in many cases broken down fiat to the ground it would seem as if they must be ruined be- | yond recovery, but it is said that new branches will come out next year and the | trees again do as well as ever.
 The peaches, too, are without number or measure, and many of them of great size, those weighing pound | or perhaps a little more, each being not at all uncommon. There is no trouble about failure of the peach crop here and when sales are made from
 the orchards it is always by weight, the
 beist ones bringing from thirty to forty
 dollars per ton for drying.
 This drying process is simple and inex-
 pensiye and requires but little outlay fol
 apparatus The trays are made of shakes
 and are about two feet by three feet square
 The peaches are merely cut in half, tho
 pits removed and the two sections laid
 closely together on the trays.
 As there is, of course, no danger of rair
 at this season, there is no delay or hin
 drance, and a short time of exposure tC the fierce rays of the sun soon cures then
 enough. The trays are then put in {
 fumigator, which is only sort of upright box or cupboard, with cleats on the inside
 to support about dozen trays, separated | Inv a snace of three or four inches Som,
 sulphur is burned on a pan at the bottom
 the box is kept tightly closed for half aI
 hour, the trays are then removed and witl little additional exposure to the sun tn
 work of curing is completed.
 This sulphur bath is for two reasons. bleaches and improves the appearance O , the fruit, and it keeps away insects, fo after it is properly fumigated insects hay , no use for it.
 Watermelons, too, and all the differen
 varieties of the melon family are now il season, and while they may not be an, , more plenty than at the east, they af much cheaper and fully as large. There is story told of man who sen his boy to the fruit stand for water
 melon, and furnished him with ten cent : to bring it home; after a whil : he was surprised to see the bo
 coming down the street with watermelo - SO large that he had been obliged to borro' 1 a wheelbarrow to carry it, and he also ha n five cents in change. He said he couldn d possibly bring ten-cent one without
 horse and wagon.
 e This story may be true and the wate 2 melon may have been procured in the re, IT ular course. only mention it here if showing what the natives can do whs