The daily morning journal and courier., 1901-10-21
CURING OF PRUNEs IN THE SUN.
Great Industry in Santa Clara Valley Californja-GroWers Association.

1t represents an enormous industry. It is part of an annual crop which amounted last year to 200, ,000 OO0 pounds. These figures are large, yet they represent less than three pounds to each inhabitant of the United States alone, certainly not a great amount of fruit to be consumed by persons who eat, in one form or another three bar rels of apples each every year Yet ap- pies are grown everywhere, in every state and territory of the Union While the culture of the prune Is confined all most exclusively to California, though some are grown in other sections of the Pacific coast. The industry Is localized even more than this, for of the 620Qo acres of prune trees in California, about 10000 are in the single county of Santa Clara. It is here that the prune indus try has reached it's highest develop ment in the world. The old Turkish prune of Bosna and Servia, the little, wea zened, skinny, tasteless thing which was all the market had generation ago. was improved upon by the French prune, and California growers now give to those who know what good prune IS, anu VIII Ilpl pW- oitiSi'SN "isti MY inferior kind, fruit that is scarcely even relative in appearance and taste of the one which one made the prune a joke from one end of the country to the other.
 The valley of Santa Clara lies at the head of San Francisco bay Here 1t ls where nature riots. where the sun shines perpetually, yet where there IS rain enough for luxuriant crops and great underground reservoir for ar tesian wells for irrigating orchards, where the climate Is equable and there are neither the rigors of winter nor the heat prostrations of summer that the millions of prune trees wear their Whlte robes in the spring and bear their pur- ple of ripening fruit in the fall. Prune trees are not grown upon their own roots, but are grafted upon stock grown from peach stones This makes them harder and more thrifty. Generally, the young trees are set In the orcharu the second year. the distance Of 50 rect each way being that now faVoreo' though the earlier orchards were set usually at 20 feet, This was found to be too close for the best results in bearing, the trees touching each other in their upper parts and not thriving so well as when farther apart frees set too close together also produce smaller fruit on the average than those further apart, and as the price or prunes is gauged upon the size, II IS profitable to produce smaller quantity of larger sizes and, therefore, better to have a less number Of trees to the acre in order to do so.
 The prune tree has it's insects ana fungus pests, like all fruits, but care and scientific attention neutraiizes 4hem Probably nowhere in the world has the science of orcharding on large scale been raised to higher standard than in the prune districts Of Callfornla and nowhere will be found thriftler or more perfect fruit. In this care ana the perfection of fruit resulting rom 1t lie much of the superiority Of the California prune. The notorious San Jose scale is probably more a stranger to the orchards about San Jose whose name 1t bears than any other old orchard district In the country. It was not a native of Santa Clara valley, put was imported. it is believed, from Japan. where it is found in profusion on the native trees. San Jose. however was the first locality where 1t was recognized as a deadly enemy of fruit trees and where the first successful ef- forts were made to fight it, and hence the name it received. What is true or the scale is also true of the borer codlin moth. curculio and other pests They are fought by the prune growers jntelligently and unremittingly, with the result that the orchards are tnrifty and clean.
 It is in the fall when the crop Is gath cred than the greatest activity IS Wit- messed. Beginning about the middle or August and extending to october, the picking. curing and housing or the crop calls for the labor of large mum Der of persons. Usually the fruit, which is of rich reddish purple when ripe, is permitted to fall to the ground, elther when shaken from the tree by the wind or when the tree is purposely shaken. The soft ground prevents injury from falling and the fruit lies until picked up and placed in boxes, generally several days. It is not necessary In California to dry by expensive artificial heat as Is the case in Oregon and other prune- growing sections. The fruit is cured naturally in the sun and Is Of better quality than that evaporated by neat in drying houses. It is first dipped In a weak solution of lye to cut the skin slghtly to facilitate the drying process, and is then spread upon trays, Which are three by eight feet in size. These trays are then spread out upon the ground and permitted to remain there several days A drying yard often cov- CTS several acres of ground, ramihed by little railways, upon which flat cars piled high with trays of fruit are push ed by hand to and from the shed or house where the fruit is handled. should 1t rain. which seldom happens during the drying season, the trays are stacked up during the shower and spread out again at its close. sun cured fruit in California means some thing entirely different from what most persons have seen in sun drying Of the domestic sort.
 After remaining several days on the trays the fruit is permitted to dry sev- eral days longer in the shade by stack ing the trays up in a pile III such v ay that there shall be free c;rcula- ton of air. When completely cured the bulk of the fresh prune being reduced at the ratio of from 3 to 1-2 pounds
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