The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1901-10-13

to the entire landscape, of the thousands
Of men and boys, women and girls Who
work among the fruit and of the proc
esses by which the fruit on the tree is
converted into that seen in the box? How
many, also, when they see the little,
dried prunes so common and once 1Gni-
versal, know that there is an infinitely
better one, larger, better looking and
better Favored, which grows in the sun
ny valleys of California? How nanviEAre
aware that the prune they have known
from childhood is not the prune as It is
grown in California and as it appears
and tastes when put on the table after
some of the receipts long used by the
California prune growers and now being
published for the benefit of all?
A little box of prunes on the grocery
shelVes does not look very imposing. but
1t represents an enormous Industry
is part OF an annual crop which aIyi5iint-
ed last year to 200, Qo1 ,eeG 5G6 1ounds. Those
hsures are large. yet they represent Tess
than three pounds to each inhabitart
Oh the United tates alone, certainly not
a great amount of fruit to be CONSUMED
by persons who eat in one form or an
other three barrels of apples every year.
Yet apples are grown everywhere in ev-
cry state and territory of the union While
the culture of the prune is confined al
most exclusively to California though
some are grown in other sections of the
racing coast. The industry is local
lzed even more than this, for Of the g.
oUo acres of prune trees in California
4O,OO0 are in the single county Of Santa
CARA. 1t is here that the prune industry
mas reached its highest development In
the world. The old Turkish prl1n, OF
Bosnia and Seryia, the little, weakened.
SKINNY, tasteless thing which was all
m nYvl-n Iod
improved upon by the French prune and
those who know what a good prune is.
Will not be satisfied with an inferior
KIND, fruit that is scarcely even reIa-
tive IN appearance and taste to the one
which once made the prune Joke from
one end of the country to the other
The valley of Santa Clara lies at the
head of San francisco BAY and is in
closed on the east by the Mount Hamilton
range and on the south and west by the
Santa Cruz mountains, being open to the
sea breezeS on the north by the way OF
the bay and the Golden Gate some t1tty
miles distant. Here it is, where nature
riots where the sun shines perpetuaIIy,
yet where there is rain enough for lux
urlant crops and great underground
reservoir for artesian wells for irrigating
orchards, where the climate is equable
and there are neither the rigors OF winter
nor the neat proStrations of summer
that the millions of prune trees wear
their white robes in the spring and bear
their purple burdens of ripening fruit in
the fall. There are in the valley some
100000 trees, most of which are now in
bearing, and more are being set out every
year though not enough to keep pace
with the increased consumption of the
fruit now that people are learning that
the California prune is not the kind with
which they have been familiar The
scenes in Santa Clara valley are repeated
in the other districts in California where
prunes are grown in considerable uuan-
titles. The most important of these dis
trlcts lie in Alameda, Napa, Sonoma,