The citizen. (Frederick City, Md.) 1895-1923, 1900-03-02

of Jack Frost.
These are the ivellest days of the
year in the southern California val
leys where oranges are grown. The
orange groves are noisy with hun
dreds of men and boys picking the
golden fruit, the packing houses are
as busy as the proverbial beehive
with thousands of men, women, boys
ana girls packing the fruit in boxes,
and the shippers are full of business
all day long. The yield of oranges this
season is between 1900 and li,"Oj
carloads, or between 4 100000 and f.
100000 boxes. There has never before
been such a yield of oranges in Cali
fornia- Last year the crop was about
1900 carloads, and the year before it
was 5000 carloads. The prices, too.
are the best in ten years.
In a general way the present orange
crop is worth to the growers about
S4.600,O00 The railroad companies
will get about $2.600,0O for hauin.
the product to market and the ship
pers. who are practically spectators
In oranges. may make tens of thou
sands of dollars more from the ON
pun vi lnt ScdSOll. Htst ART MOHNtI-
full figures when one considers thar
ten or twelve years ago. orange grow
ing in California was in its infancy.
The increase in the duty on foreign
oranges has helped the Ca ifornians
amazingly, and the ruin of the Flori-
do groves by freezing in December
four years ago has left the California
growers with little competition in the
United States. Groves that will yield
their owners Il net profit of $50 an
acre this season are common. Here
ana there are older groves bearing Sul-
perior fruit, which will yield their
owners $3.50 and 1919 an acre clear
profit. But the growers have had their
share of hard times and discourage
ments. In the winter of 1928. when
the yield was unusually heavy and
the fruit in fine condition. there We're
no buyers or shippers, and a crop,
which ordinarily would have sold for
S1,2O0,0O0, brought less than half the
expense of Transporting it to the East
ern markets. Many growers became
lnsolvent through their losses that
year. and as many more put mortgage
es on their property and hoped for
tied by frosts, and in few hours one
January night, $2.00O,0O0 worth of
oranges were made unstable
The magnitude of the orange indus
try surprises most Fasteners in Cali
fornia for the first time. The Los An
geles Express recently estimated the
total capital invested in orange grow
Ing in this State ut $4,000. 900. The
Industry is almost wholly confined to
the seven southern-moSt counties of
the State, Los Angeles, Riverside, San
Bernardino Orange. san Diego Santa
Barbara and Ventura and in these tn
orange groves comprise an area of 4S,-
200 acres. The number of range
trees now in bearing in southern Cal
lfornia is put at 2.072, 400, and the
number of non-hearing trees 10 placed
at .221.300. With the same produc-
tiveness, when the latter come to
bearing the annual crop will he up
ward of $1,000 carloads. and at prices
like those of this season, the Califor-
mans will sell their products for some
thing like S10.000,0oO.
The orange harvesting season be
gins in early December 1t reaches its
high water mark about the middle of
February, and continues until June A
few weeks previous to the picking
time the wholesale shippers go the
rounds Of the groves. Experts some
times guess within leo boxes of what
n ten-acre grove will yield. Some buy
ers have arrangements from year o
year with the growers. while most Of
the producers prefer to make new
contracts each season. The agent in
Bpects the groves snd offers so much
n box or so much for the fruit on
trees and here the responsibility of
the owner ceases The shipper puts
his pickers and packers at work. The
grower receives his check, and anoth-
er year is begun.
At the orange picking time the corn
try Is a marvel to the Ease rncr
While standing among the oranges
the picker looks away over grove af-
ter grove. fields Of flowers, acres of
golden eschoHzias. patches Of wild
daisies, bluebells aad yellow violets;
and finally the eve rests on the Sierra
Madres. twenty or thirty miles away
the garden wall n this Hesperides
His nOstrils inhals the odor of the
biOSsOlh, Nlt& lis CNCS StN lllt
bnowbanks Of winter on the great
peaks. The orchard picker, however,
has no time to spend'on the aesthetics
Of the subject. he is picking against
time and an East lie waiting.
Almost the O1ly danger the orange
grower has to fear is a visit by Jack
Frost True the neteorologicaIre
OF southern California for thirty-seven
years show no time when the temper
ature has gone below % above zero,
and it is only once or twice in eleven
years that the mercury in orange
groves has reached that point The
ticklish period of the winter, so far as
frost is concerned, II during the latter
part of December and the early part
Of January But so far this s7ason
the mercury has not heen below -.
and that once was for half-hour JUS
at daybreak last month The orange
will bear five or SIX degre of frost
if for very shot duration; hut if
such temperature continues for SIEVE
nj hours, or occurs several nigh ~
succession, the fruit viii p'
and Young nursefr stock affected,
though the III cs may no. f'er
There is no abs llufely most - loc
ty. rs the two past reasons have DEM
onsuated-N Y. Srn.