Clinch Valley news. [volume] (Jeffersonville, Va.) 18??-2019, 1891-03-06
THE ORANGE CROP.
RAISING THE GOLDEN IcfsUiT IN
SOUTHERN .OaL4E0lsNIA.
The First ora;.gcs Groves Neglected
for, Real Estate-Ncw Interest
Aroused Picking the Fruit
Attractive Figures.


ance in all the varied productions OF
California, says a Pasadena lctter to the
New York Times. Cotton is king in the
Gulf States, grain in some of tho inter,
cceanic sections, but in California of the
South the orange is king, and is increas.
ing its power and influence day by day.
There is something singularly seductive
in the fruit. It woos men on, to incon.
tincnt Investments in places where the
orange should be a stranger, hence We.
need not be surprised to find that in the
various orange centres of the southwest
lands well adapted for the purpose have.
assumed remarkable values, aud an orange
boom has taken the place cfthe real estate
craze that is now only memory.
The orange was originally imported to
this country years ago by the mission
fathers, who brought tho seeds from
Spain. They were planted about the
old missions, tho fruit being used for
domestic purposes, aud the crop being
simply suitable or large enough for those
purposes. Fifteen or twenty years ago
these old trees, which arc in many cases
still bearing, attracted the attention of
Eastern visitors, who, after examining
some groves near Los Angeles, believed
that the future of tho Golden State was
identical with that of the orange. AS a
result, numbers of persons camo hero aud
settled in the various portions and laid
out orange groves. When the groves
began to bear, tho difficulty of transport
tation assumed ominous proportions.
There was no market, and rates wore SO
high that numbers of men lost their all
in attempting to make it.
! Finally, about five years ago, the At
Crimson, Topeka aud Santc Fe Road
found its way through the orange groves
of the San Gabriel Valley, and they were
at once upon a through EASTER line, and
orange groves began to have courage.
But the railroad brought the land boom,
and in few shors months almost every
fruit man had given up the business and
was dealer in real estate. The groves
that men had waited years to produce
were cut up into building lots aud sold
off ut prices that made ones head swim,
The orange trees were overlooked and
neglected; weeds filed the formerly we'll
kept groves and the trees almost forgot
tho sight of water. Parasites, scale in
sects of many kinds, gathered about them
and what promised to be tho glory of
the country was completely neglected
and forgotten. p
The "boom" in real estate was ephe-
neral; it took wings and departed, and
again the people now numbering thou
sands where there had been hundreds,
began to look about for producers of
wealth. New transportation facilities
had been added, and it was soon seen
that good orange crop was equivalent
to SO much cash, and an orange boom
began. Lands adapted to the purpose
were in great demand, and hundreds of
groves changed hands. Tho neglected
trees took on new interest. Real es-
tate dealers and boom time capitalists
could be seen following the pillow or
making irrigating bitches, poorer, per.
haps, but happier men.
1 The effect was marvellous. Fine groves
appeared all over the country; land was
sold by the acre for what it would pro-
duce, aud to men who proposed to live
by and on it; young trees were set out
by the thousand, and small fortunes were
made by the owners of choice nursery
stock. In the meantime tho white scale
was routed by parasite discovered in
Australia, and everything seemed to be
going the way OF the orange men. And
this is the condition OF affairs to-day
from Riverside to Pasadena. New
orange groves are being planted, and the
crop is the largest in the history of the
State and will amount, all in all, to over
three thousand carloads of fruit, which
will nearly all be sent to Chicago, New
York, Boston and Philadelphia.
The towns from Pasadena to Riverside
present most attractive spectacle. The
trees are full of golden fruit, while many
bear both green aud ripe fruit and bios
SONS. In tho large groves the growers
often ship the fruit themselves and make
their own terms, but in the greater num-
Der of cases the small growers sell their
oranges on the trees directly to packers
and thus run absolutely no risk. When
the grove is large one, this means
fortune with very small outlay. Thus,
one grower sold his crop on the trees for
$4,000. His expenses during the year
NSA 10y SeSAS "a VIZ e3AO'S hpu bOOu iSoo
than $1,000. Such figures are attractive
and draw men on, but in this instance
the grove was an old. and very large one,
producing oranges that brought fancy
price.
The packers aud shippers, of whom
there are several firms, go the rounds of
the groves before tho picking and make
contracts for the fruit, q common way
being SO much per box as soon as the
fruit is ripe. In the latter part of De-
cember or January the gangs of pickers
go the rounds. They come in big wag-
ons piled with orange boxes, and among
them are Americans, Mexicans, indians,
and Others, armed with knives, scissors,
and various patent contrivances for do
tatching the orange from the trees with
out injuring the skin. Into the grove
they drive and soon each tree has its
ship ladder, and the picking begins.
Some of the men have gupny sack or
bag tied about them, while others hold
canvas funnel into which the oranges are
n ,,.J - &. q