Los Angeles herald., 1891-01-15
unURsDAY, JANUARY Is, 1891.
TRE MARKET FOR FRANCISCAN 1T BE
OVERDONEP

When the writer was editing the San
Diego World, away back in 1928, a
great controversy arose as to whether
she raising OF oranges would not be
soverdone in Southern California. At
shat time Riverside, Pasadena, Pomona.
Orange, Santa Ana and Tustin City, and
ia score of other places, had no existence.
The orange product of Southern Califor-
nia--and that expression meant then
the old Wolfskill grove in Los Angeles
and few smaller orchards, and the
Wilson, Rose, Titus and other orchards
of the San Gabriel valley-relied at that
time tor market on San Francisco. The
output OF our limited groves probably
footed up 100000 oranges year for
export, and those which were consumed
locally did not largely augment this
figure. Yet even then there was grave
doubt as to whether the orange business
was not overdohe. Outside of Los An
.geles and San Bernardino counties there
was not at that time an orange produced
in California, in commercial sense.
Colonel Cave :. Couts had ornamented
his charming Guajome home with few
trees, which yielded finely, and that was
about all the participation San Diego
county had in the orange production.
Not only were there fears that the
orange production might be overdone at
that early day in citrus development.
but old John Wolfskill, years ago, op-
posed any further diversion of the
waters of the Los Angeles river, because
he supposed that his own plantation,
and those of a few of his friends, would
about exhaust the irrigating possibili-
ties of that stream. 1t now supplies
fifty times as many producers as it did
then, and it is no exaggeration to say
that not one-tenth of it's beneficial capa-
bilities have yet been utilized.
The bugbear of over-production is an
entirely fallacious one. There are now
fifty times as many potatoes grown in
the United States as there were fifty
years ago. And yet potatoes sell by the
bushel now for from three to five times
as much as they did when only one
fiftieth part as many potatoes were pro-
duced as are marketed now.
There are fifty oranges eaten in the
United States now for one that was
eaten thirty years ago. The sixty-fve
or seventy millions of people OF the
United States 1--WE care nothing for Por-
ter's restrictive census) are rapidly be-
coming rich and luxurious. People who
lived in log cabins thirty years ago now
live in palaces. The appearance OF an
orange in Posey county, Indiana, thirty
years ago, would have raised commo-
tion that for the moment would have
made that noble people forget their
Democracy and their hoop poles. Now
all the bellies of all the villages of that
idyllic and happy region can alternate
chewing gum and chewing oranges.
The Italian government published sta
tistics some years ago which showed
that, for period Of ten years, the ship
ment of oranges from the three princi-
pal ports of Italy amounted to the
princely yearly average of $4,000, 900.
Twenty millions OF dollars is large !
sum, and the Incompatible orange of
Southern California, with the increasing
tendency to luxury in the world, new
and old, can count on market at least
as large.
One thing we concede, and that is
that the price of oranges will probably
decrease with increased production.
There is no reason why the orchardist
should make from $500 to $4,000 yearly
off OF an acre planted in oranges. As
matter OF fact, this can be done now
from mature groves. Half these figures
present the most attractive horticultural
prospect, and half OF the present prices
will at once expand the market for
to ten times its present scope.
Another thing may be freely conceded.
The inferior orange is bound to go, and
lands not adapted to producing the very
best quality OF citrus fruit will be dedi-
Gated to some other and more congenial
product. But the market for good Or
anges will never grow smaller; while
the region Of country in the United
States, or elsewhere, that can produce
The priced fruit, is enclosed in notably
narrow limits.