The record-union., 1893-11-27
PLACER COUNTY FRUITS.
Interesting Items About a Thriving
Section.
What Has Been Done in the Foothills
During the Past Five
Years.
[From our Penryn correspondent.

[From our Penryn correspondent
PENRYN, Nov. 26.-Among the districts
tributary to Sacramento that of lower
Placer County is one OF growing 1mpor-
tance. AS one OF early deciduous fruit
shipments, it is unsurpassed in the State
This year, abnormal in all respects, has
on the whole been profitable one, and
the amount of green fruits shipped from
the three stations of Newcastle, Penryn
and Loomis has been considerably IN eA-
cess Of any previous year.
In fact, lower Placer County has
shipped of all the green fruits shipped
out of the State this year in excess OF ~
per cent. of the total fruit, or nearly 1900
carloads. Five years ago Penryn shipped
i've carloads, and this year sent out ap-
preaching 600 carloads and rivaled II not
outshipped Newcastle, and is destined
within a very few years to be by far the
most important green fruit shipping
point in the State, owing to the large area
OF applicable early fruit land, much OF
which already planted has not come IN
bearing, while some hundreds of acres
are now being prepared for planting this
coming spring, one party alone putting
in between two and three hundred acres.
The Importance OF the district IS evinced
by the congregatlng fruit buying houses,
there being eleven already in business,
which have storing and shipping facili-
ties. 1t may be of interest TO enumerate
the houses.
At Colfax, the ColfaX Fruit-GrOwers'
Association; at Auburn, the Auburn Co
operative Fruit Company; at Newcastle,
The Cooperative Fruit Company of New
castle; the houses of George ID. Kellogg,
w. j. Wilson IL Son, Porter Brothers "
Company; at Penryn, Branch OF the
Newcastle Fruit Company of Newcastle,
Pattee IL Lett, The Penryn Fruit Com
pany; at Loomis, The LOOMS Fruit
Growers Association and the Earl Fruit
Company; at Lincoln, The W. r. Strong
Company. 1t is understood that several
of the houses mentioned are intending To
close other houses they have, and con-
centrate their efforts entirely in Placer
County.
The apparant advantages of lower
Placer County are, that it can ship green
fruit for the Eastern markets earlier than
can be shipped from any other parts of
the L nited States, and from It's railroad
and selling facilities. The early peaches
of Placer County arrive, ordinarily, from
two TO three weeks earlier in the Chicago
and other Eastern markets than from
any other part, and consequently fetch
the first prices. Two or three weeks
atterward peaches come i'll from Georgia,
but inferior to the Early Alexandria
from Placer County. Then the midsum
mer and late peaches from Placer County
arriving East are far better than can be
sent from other parts of the United States.
and far better keeping qualities. The
same may be said of cherries, plums and
the variety of other fresh fruits.
This year has netted to the grower on
many fruit tracts 500 per acre, where
$500 per acre has not been unusual years
before. 1t has been slow for many to
understand that we have here in the foot
hills of Central California the earliest
fruit-growing district III the country, and
the southern part of the State has been
backward in learning, and in fact is not
yet conscious, except in limited degree,
that the foothll country about here, and
extending north and south for a consid-
erable distance, can produce both deciGu-
Gus and citrus fruits earlier than can be
shown from the more southern parts OF
the State.
II viii, perhaps, be remembered that
Placer County sent carload OF oranges
down on exhibition in Los Angeles,
in 1887, in the early part of Decem Der,
before oranges were ripe there, which
was visited by over $4,000 people, and
occasioned the greatest surprise, and In
1dCb IL NdS ulIliCulk W COuNlIICG bu6 IGSl-
dents there that the oranges were actu-
ally grown on trees in Placer County,
and the newspapers there regaled their
readers with an account Of the high alti-
tudes which existed in Placer County,
and its mountains OF snow, and ridiculed
the idea that any serious consideration
need to be given to Placer County as any
rival in the citrus fruits of the favored
regions of the south.
RDt Placer ('OuntU has made Sfaa0u
progress, more in its most profitable early
deciduouS fruits than citrus, although it
is now beginning to invade the San Fran
cisco market with it's early oranges, and
will from this time on show much greater
advances in this limo. The first oranges
shipped this year in the State were from
our toWnsmen Mr.. Cockayne, one of our
English colonists, from trees in his gar
den near the town, and went forward
on October 3lst, and j. Parker Whitney
OF Rocklin commenced sending oranges
some time ago from his thirty y-hve-acre
grove of young trees, four and five years
planted from budded stock, some of
which have as high as seven or eight
hundred oranges on them, and will mar
ket this year from $4,000 to 10000 oranges,
considerable quantities of which have
already gone forward, and been sold at
from 81 to So per box.
Upon one little group Of orange trees
planGeu out i've years ago IN InlS Vlcln-
ity, your correspondent counting and es-
timating the number of oranges upon
them made the number at 5000, and all
of the finest quality, and it is doubtful If
any but the choicest tracts in Southern
California can equal the many hundreds
of acres which are yet uncultivated about
here for superior oranges. 1t is quite an
enigma to many, that of the warm belt
of the central foothills. but the explana-
ton is simple. 1t is q well-known fact
that low, level lands in a particular lati-
tude where frosts occur will have great
deal more of colder weather than will be
found upon the adjoining and more ele-
waited hillSides. In the evening it will
be observed when passing through an
undulating country that the air becomes
perceptibly cooler when going from the
hin into the valley, and again warmer
as one leaves the valley for the hillside.
As the sun sinks the air grows cooler,
and as the cool air is the heavier, it
gravitates down the hillsides into the
valleys, and the warmer air rises. The