History of Fresno County, California, with biographical sketches of the leading men and women of the county who have been identified with its growth and development from the early days to the present, Volume I, Part 27

Author: Vandor, Paul E., 1858-
Publication date: 1919
Publisher: Los Angeles, Calif., Historic Record Company
Number of Pages: 1362

USA > California > Fresno County > History of Fresno County, California, with biographical sketches of the leading men and women of the county who have been identified with its growth and development from the early days to the present, Volume I > Part 27

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The project contemplates irrigating in Fresno, Kings and Tulare Coun- ties 600,000 acres and developing power to irrigate 400,000 more by pumping,

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HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY

besides reclaiming alkali land and making it all productive. This gigantic undertaking is one of the largest construction enterprises ever contemplated in the state. One report is that in the event of its construction the Sanger Lumber Company would move its mills to the head of the reservoir from Hume. It is also stated that the construction of the reservoir will result in time in the cementing of all district canals.

The Madera Irrigation District covering lands in that county and in Fresno also is another great surplus water impounding enterprise, involving construction of an immense dam on the San Joaquin. It has passed the or- ganization stage. When its great lake in the gorge of the river is a fact, no more the village site of Millerton and its last relic in the old courthouse and no more the Fort Miller site with its old buildings will be on the surface of the earth. This region about which centers so much of Fresno's earliest history will be submerged hundreds of feet.

The transformation that irrigation wrought in Fresno County was truly marvelous, placing it in its leading position as an irrigation, horticultural and viticultural region. Nordhoff wrote his book, already referred to, after a first visit to California in 1872. He revised it nine years later upon a sec- ond visit and he draws the contrast. He records "such great and often start- ling effects" were produced during the interim by the introduced new cul- tures and methods that while all that he had foretold had been realized and more too, great tracts, which had the appearance of sterile desert in 1872, were literally "blossoming as the rose." He observed that "the extension of irrigation has not merely enabled farmers to plant and sow where nine years before sheep found only a scanty living, but in the mild climate of California trees and shrubs have grown so rapidly that to his amazement he beheld many places, which on his first visit were bare and apparently sterile plains, presenting then the appearance already of old settled farming tracts," besides "prosperous homes and farmsteads where nine and eight years before he drove or rode fifty or 100 miles without seeing a tree or house."

Such is the transformation brought about by water, as portrayed by one who beheld the "before and after." There is a material side shown in figures which was as remarkable as it was rapid in the development and settling up of the county on a permanent basis. A few figures of the first decade cover- ing this fourth era in the county ushered in about 1880 will suffice :

Acres Assessed

1880

1,631,972

1885

1,803,331

1890

2,108,668

Value of Property

1880

$ 6,028,960

1885

14,430,487

1890

35,600,640

Assessed Taxes

1880

$ 120,865.60

1885

245,318.28

1890

469,081.28

What is the measure of due of those, who boldly pioneered and patiently developed and worked out the experimental ideas with and growing out of irrigation, if the gratitude of a world is owing him "who makes two blades of grass grow where one grew before"?

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HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY

CHAPTER XXXIII

FRESNO IS THE CENTER OF THE SUN-DRIED RAISIN INDUSTRY. SPAIN AS THE LEADER FOR CENTURIES OUTDISTANCED IN 1892. TON- NAGE AND ACREAGE HAVE MADE GREAT GAINS. VINEYARDS HAVE NOT LOST IN PRODUCTIVENESS. STABILIZATION OF PRICES. CALIFORNIA ACREAGE THE LARGEST IN THE WORLD. FIRST RAISIN EXHIBIT AT 1863 STATE FAIR. SEEDED RAISIN A FRESNO CREATION. NOTABLE FIRST VINEYARDS AND PACKERS.

The raisin industry of America is centered in Fresno County, though the raisin is produced in other parts of California. Exceptional advantages in climate and soil have made the raisin a specialty of this region. It has aided more to make the county known than any one other product. The county is known as "The Raisin Center": the city as "The Raisin City." Yet the industry represents only about one-tenth of the total income, so varied and many are the resources.

Fresno was once Spain's principal competitor. In 1892 the home crop first equaled Spain's. The difference has increased steadily, and today Fresno produces double the quantity of Spain, which held the lead for cen- turies. A normal crop ranges between 160 to 170 million pounds, often ex- ceeded as with 182 millions in 1914 and about 256 millions the year after. Less than a dozen of the state's fifty-eight counties produce raisins. Fres- no's raisin grape acreage of over 150,000 is by far the largest in the world. Kings and Tulare counties are the next largest producers, but their com- bined crops do not exceed one-fifth of an annual normal Fresno crop.

When one talks raisins, the subject is Fresno. The raisin acreage and tonnage have both made great gains in the last few years. The crop of 1917 was estimated at 137,500 tons. The tonnage was 132,000 against 125,000 for the year before. The prediction is that tonnage and acreage will reach 200,- 000 in a year or two. The acreage in 1917 was estimated at 165,000 but with unlisted holdings and yearlings and two-year-old vines the total is well above the figure.

Owing to improved methods of culture, average production of bearing vineyards has considerably risen, and yet due to the great acreage of young vines not in bearing the average for the whole has not raised. Fruit men estimate the total muscat crop of the state at 100,000, the Thompson seedless at 43,000, the Sultanas 8,500, Feherzagos, etc., at 6,000, all largely handled by the association. The largest increase has been in Thompson's and the pros- pects for the year 1918 are for an increase in that variety. Planting in 1917 was about 10,000 acres in the San Joaquin Valley and perhaps 8,000, largely seedless, in the north. The increase has not been large in the last three years. That of 1916 was probably of 15,000 acres. The biggest and most numerous plantings were of Thompson's.

The vineyards seem to have lost little or nothing in their productivity. The deterioration of the old ones, when given anything like proper care, is not nearly so rapid as the development of young vineyards, and as a con- sequence of this and of better culture methods and pruning, there has re- sulted, over large areas, a steady increase of crops, in remarkable contrast to the years before. In 1903 for the first time the crop reached 60,000 tons.

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HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY

It fell off then and in 1907 reached 75,000 tons. The total productions for the decade have been estimated from careful figures kept by the California Fruit Grower to have been:

1907

75,000 tons

1908

65,000

1909

70,000

1910

62,500

1911

65,000

1912

95,000

1913

65,000

1914

98,000

1915

125,000

1916

132,000

1917

157,500

Since the formation five years ago of the growers' association steady in- crease in crops and improvement in conditions of the grower have resulted in the raisin district of Fresno. The increase in tonnage has demanded new markets and these have been developed. With a normal season, it is likely the tonnage will become even larger in 1918 and the years to come. The California Associated Raisin Company has set the mark at a high percentage to retain control when the big crops are produced and to keep up the standard of pro- duction for the benefit of producer and consumer.

The prices of raisins have been stabilized and doubled over those that pre- vailed before the company was established. Even under the old contract which made compromises with and concessions to the packers and the brokers, the growers had practical control of the situation and the ruinous career of speculation with two-cent a pound raisins and mortgages as nat- ural consequences was stopped and the industry has been placed on a finan- cial basis. Instead of pulling up vines, vineyards have been made to produce and the immense crops brought in millions to the growers. The 1917 crop will by the time the last payment is made have brought $15,000,000.

In 1872 Californians produced in limited quantity an article called "dried grapes." It was sold in mining camps and among the poor as a cheap sub- stitute for raisins. They were usually mission grapes, but did not keep, nor bear transportation to long distances, were not cured soundly, and any- how were not raisins. The product was of no commercial importance. Nord- hoff predicted that unless for some reason not then apparent it receives a check, California would in ten years (1892) supply a large part of the raisins of commerce. At the time of his book revision, it was one of the most prom- ising and important of the then comparatively recently introduced industries of the state.

The California State Board of Agriculture reported in 1912 that "one of the largest and most important branches of fruit growing is the cultiva- tion of the raisin grape, the acreage in which is now by far the largest in the world." It credits the introduction of the raisin vine into California in 1851 to Agostin Haraszthy of San Diego from muscatel vines from seeds of Malaga raisins. In March, 1852, he imported the Alexandria muscatel from Malaga in Spain, and ten years later on a visit in September, 1861, selected cuttings of the Gordo Blanca, afterwards grown and propagated in his San Diego vineyard. Yet another importation of the Alexandria muscatel was that in 1855 by A. Delmas, planted near San Jose. G. G. Briggs of Davis- ville, Cal., was still another importer of muscatel grape vines from Spain.

Raisins were produced first on a considerable scale in the southern part of the state, but they found it more profitable there to ship as table grapes or set out vineyards to wine grapes. Riverside entered the field in 1873 when John W. North, the founder of the colony that bore his name, first planted the Alexandria muscat, though not until three years later did grape growing become general in that district. In 1873 also, R. G. Clark planted

189

HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY

the same variety in El Cajon Valley in San Diego County, but the vine- yards there were not planted until 1884-86. MacPherson Brothers at one time the largest growers and packers in the state, planted raisin grapes in Orange County about 1875-76. San Bernardino and Los Angeles produced raisins in former years, but the Anaheim vine disease ravaged thousands of acres between 1884-89, growers lost heart and citrus fruit in large part replaced the vine. It was in 1876 that W. S. Chapman, whose name is so prominently identified with the farming era of Fresno, imported Spanish muscat vines for Central California Colony. They did not differ materially from those already growing in the county.

Positive proof is lacking as to who produced the first California raisins. According to the California State Agricultural Society, an exhibit was made by Dr. J. Strentzel at the 1863 state fair. Its report notes that there were two features "which rendered it remarkable-these were dried prunes and raisins." The first successful vineyards to perfect raisin culture in the state were those planted by G. G. Briggs at Davisville and by R. B. Blowers of Woodland, also in Yolo County, the first mainly of Alexandria muscatels, the other of Gordo Blanca. Both produced raisins as early as 1867, but not until 1873 were any placed on the market in quantity. Blowers was in 1882 one of the largest single producers in the state. His advice and methods were followed in large part by Fresno pioneer growers. About 1887 Fresno appears to have shipped a considerable quantity for the first time, and market reports noted that "Fresno raisins of excellent quality are now on the market, especially from the Butler and Forsyth vineyards."

The varieties of raisin grapes are few in number. The seedless Sul- tana grown extensively near Smyrna in Asia Minor was first brought to California by Haraszthy in 1861. Thompson's seedless was named for W. Thompson Sr. of Yuba City by the Sutter County Horticultural Society. He procured the cuttings in 1878 from Erlanger & Barry of Rochester, N. Y., who described them as "a grape from Constantinople, named Lady de Coverly." The names of the Hungarian Haraszthy and of his son, Arpad, are inseparably linked with the California grape and wine industries. The white Muscat of Alexandria and the Muscatel Gordo Blanca are the raisin grapes of California as they are of Spain. The Gordo Blanca is considered by many the most delicious California grown table grape.

Until the fall of 1881, the few that cultivated the raisin grape also packed their raisins. The process is not difficult and requires no complicated or costly devices. The sun is the best dryer and in this regard Fresno is liberally endowed. Artificial drying, which has in wet seasons been re- sorted to, is found to produce too often a raisin that is shrivelled and over- cooked, dry and hard. When the California sun-dried raisin was first shipped in quantity to the eastern market is not recorded. Efforts along this line by the pioneers were individual ventures, but it is recorded that by Novem- ber, 1875, New York had received 6,000 twenty-two-pound boxes. A con- siderable quantity was shipped about 1888. The growth of the industry was remarkable, though a slow process for the first years. In 1879 the crop first exceeded one million pounds. In 1885 it was over nine millions and next year it jumped to fourteen millions, until with steady increases it reached in 1912 the enormous total of 140 millions.

SPANISH COMPETITION OUTSTRIPPED

Raisins were at first principally produced in the San Bernardino Valley, but the industry gradually spread northward. About 1887 California raisins began to be in demand in the eastern states, and by 1892 the United States Department of Agriculture reported that the western supply source was

190

HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY

reducing the foreign imports by twenty percent. As showing how Califor- nia has outstripped her Spanish rival, the following figures tell a tale :

Year.

Spain.

California.

1904

25,000

40,000

1906

15,800

45,000

1909

24,000

70,000

1912

12,000

85,000

1913

18,500

65,000

1914

13,500

94,000

1915

10,500

128,000

The Spanish crop is given in long and the Californian in short tons. Vic- toria and South Australia produce raisins and currants, but they are disposed of in home consumption.

The raisin industry is an asset the direct outgrowth of irrigation. Re- markable as its development has been, the record is exceeded by that of the seeded raisin industry and the marketing of that popular form of the sun-dried grape after mechanical elimination of the seeds. This business originated in Fresno County, and its twenty years' increase has been won- derful. The following returns are from the state Board of Agriculture's report on the output :

1896-700 tons, 1899-12,000, 1905-21,000, 1910-31,500, 1912-45,000, 1913-49,000, 1914-35,000, 1915-50,000.

The seeding machine was the basic creation of the late George E. Pettit as a poor and struggling inventor in New York, taken up and put to prac- tical use by the late William Forsyth, one of the leading pioneer raisin growers, whom it enriched, while Pettit was too poor even at one time to prosecute the litigation to enforce his rights and claims as the inventor. Forsyth introduced to the public the seeded raisin. When first marketed, it was with difficulty that about twenty tons were disposed of. The seeded or "stoned" raisin has a reputation of its own. It has become the most important branch of the raisin industry. The waste from seeding and cap- stemming is from ten to twelve per cent. Formerly the seed was burned as fuel : now it is used as a by-product from which alcohol and various other products are chemically produced.

GROWTH OF RAISIN INDUSTRY

The growth of the raisin industry was a slow one, because it was in a new experimental field, many difficulties in cultivation and in marketing had to be overcome and lessons learned with time in the hard school of experi- ence. The early successes gave encouragement to persevere though, and once established there were not lacking those who claimed the credit for having fathered it. The credit for producing the first Fresno raisin may, however, be safely awarded to T. F. Eisen, a pioneer of 1873 in grape grow- ing. His production was the result of chance rather than of deliberate de- sign, according to popular tradition.

It was in the very hot year of 1877 and before the Muscats were picked that a considerable portion of the grapes dried on the vines and, to save them, were treated as raisins, stemmed, packed in boxes and sent to San Francisco for sale by fancy grocers, who exhibited them in the show win- dows as a Peruvian importation. Inquiries were made and revealed that they were a Fresno product of the Eisen vineyard. This advertisement was the foundation of Fresno's reputation for raisins. It served to attract others to enter the field. In 1876 W. S. Chapman imported his Spanish Muscatels for Central California Colony. That same year T. C. White planted the Raisina vineyard with rootings from Blower's Woodland vineyard. In 1877 and 1878 the Hedgerow was set to vines: in 1879 the A. B. Butler vineyard,

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HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY

then one of the largest for raisins in the state, and the J. T. Goodman and William Forsyth vineyards followed about 1881-82. These were early curi- osities in a way and continued as show places for interested visitors for years. They were the pioneer, large vineyards.

The Hedgerow was one of the noted earliest successes, located by the late Miss M. F. Austin on Elm Avenue, about three miles south of the city and comprising 100 acres-seventy-four in vines and nineteen in orchard. The Raisina was equally as notable. What made the Hedgerow specially notable was the fact that it was established and conducted by ladies. Miss Austin was a New England teacher, who came to California in 1864, was a teacher of note in private schools in San Francisco, but failing in health in 1878 came to Fresno to enter upon a new field of activity. The vineyard derived its name from its varied hedge enclosure. She was one of the first to appreciate the possibilities of raisin culture, and to her efforts and pioneer experiences the county owes much. Many an object lesson did she teach.

With her were associated the Misses Lucy H. Hatch, E. A. Cleveland and J. B. Short, all teachers, who pooling their savings bought the 100 acres in 1876 from Chapman in his Central Colony and expended much money in experimental plantings. Miss Austin came to the vineyard in 1878 to reside. Miss Hatch was her assistant, coming here after January, 1879. As trees failed in the first experiments, they took up viticulture. Their first raisin pack was in 1878 of thirty boxes under the Austin brand: in 1879 they put up 300 boxes and in 1886 7.500. Packing was then given up and owing to the failing health of Miss Austin they afterwards sold the raisins to packers in the sweat boxes and Miss Hatch became the active manager. The Hedgerow was a practical object lesson of what intelligent and perse- vering efforts can bring about.

The eighty-acre Raisina was planted for the lady that became Mrs. T. C. White, nee Fink, and for her sister. White enlarged the original muscatel planting and was one of the very first to pack raisins commercially, acquir- ing from Blowers of Yolo the practical knowledge of cultivation and proc- esses. His experiences and knowledge aided much in giving the industry a start. The home market at first readily absorbed the local output, but when it became too large for the limited consumption a period of temporary stag- nation followed that had to be overcome by opening an eastern market. This was another tribulation that attended the infant industry. But a prom- inent feature of the county. borrowed from the south, was introduced at this period in the colony system of settlement to add to the wealth, pros- perity and upbuilding. These surrounded Fresno city on all sides and grew into each other with the entire country merged into one cordon of farming settlements of fifty, twenty and ten-acre parcels. Central Colony was the first laid out in 1874, embracing six sections of land southwest of town and sold in small tracts with twenty acres as the average. Taken as a type, it affords contrast between the wheat growing and horticultural eras. During the "dry farming" period, this land yielded an annual return of not to exceed $35,000 and only one family had its home on the 3,840 acres. Settled as a colony, the cash return was from $300.000 to $400,000, 150 families had com- fortable homes and most of them enjoyed competencies.

The Butler vineyard of over 600 acres was famous in its day, yielding not less than 110,000 twenty-pound boxes and considerably more in good years at a time when raisins averaged one dollar and seventy-five cents to two dollars and twenty-five cents a box. The Forsyth of 160 acres was a model property with a product of upward of 40,000 twenty-pound boxes and such a well established reputation for pack that output was engaged in ad- vance at fancy terms. Despite all setbacks and obstacles, raisin growing ex- tended in all directions around the city for miles until wherever water was procurable the big and small vineyard flourished. Shipments increased an- nually and to cite 1890 as a precedent establishing year the total shipment 11

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HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY

was 21,691,618 pounds, or about 1,084,580 twenty-pound boxes for the in- dustry fostered by tariff protection, one feature at least on which Demo- crats were agreed with Republicans. That shipment was distributed as follows as regards local output :

District.

Pounds.

Fresno

15,430,313

Malaga

3,459,240

Fowler

2,178,438

Selma

469,746

Madera

112,710

Borden

73,226

Kingsburg

67,945

The subject of the California raisin industry is a large one. Its various sidelights have been extensively treated. Almost every large vineyard has its particular history. Where there are so many only general features can be alluded to in a comprehensive history. A list of the large vineyards would mount into the hundreds. Passing reference can only be made to the more notable as the Hedgerow (Austin), Raisina (White), Butler, Minnewawa (Eshelman), Oothout, Forsyth, Gartenlaub, Kearney, Talequah (Baker), Paragon (Nevills), besides many others and all those conducted as corporate enterprises. Then there are the wine grape vineyards, notably the Eisen, Bar- ton, Eggers, Tarpey, Malter, Mattei, Great Western, Las Palmas, the Califor- nia Wine Association, a letter combination of whose title evolved the name of "Calwa" for the distillery, revenue warehousing and shipping point and the Swiss Italian Colony.

CHAPTER XXXIV

RAISIN INDUSTRY IS THE FINANCIAL BAROMETER OF THE COMMU- NITY'S PROSPERITY. TWENTY YEARS AGO, ITS OUTLOOK WAS NOT ENCOURAGING. MANY WERE THE EFFORTS AT COOPERATIVE CONTROL OF THE OUTPUT. ANOTHER CRISIS WAS FACED AT THE CLOSE OF THE YEAR 1917. SPECTACULAR CAMPAIGN IS STAGED FOR NEW CONTRACTS. PERCENTAGE OF CONTROL THE GREATEST EVER SECURED. FELICITATIONS OVER THE VICTORY. PROSPER- ITY UNDERWRITTEN FOR SIX YEARS.

On the subject of the raisin, the Fresno grower takes himself and the industry seriously. The industry is regarded as typical and dominant of the region and the financial barometer of the community's prosperity. The close of the year 1917 and the opening weeks of 1918 mark an epoch in that in- dustry. It was a period more exciting and spectacular than any in its his- tory with the efforts to sign up new contracts with the association, com- parable in strenuousness and scope with the Liberty bond subscriptions and other "drives" of the war times.

It is not the purpose to follow the complicated history nor the efforts of the various cooperative raisin associations under the Kearney and suc- ceeding regimes, nor of the industry's troublous times without association control endeavor covering the 1908-12 period. Nor is it the purpose to draw invidious comparisons, but as has been stated the defunct association "a good thing while it lasted" unfortunately "had within itself the seeds of its own dissolution," its end when it came was inevitable and looked for, "it lived its life in turmoil and it paid the price of politics for its intermittent business success." The existing association conducted under different busi- ness policies and methods has secured confidence and accomplished all that

193

HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY

the old did and strived for, and more too, and has been established in per- manency as the saving and fostering organization of the raisin industry of Central California.

The California Associated in its larger and more successful field of operations is after all following up on other lines the plans and policies con- ceived by Kearney whose misfortune was in the application of them. He was possibly as the theorist ahead of the day and the times with his ideas on associated cooperation to place every stage of the industry in the control of the growers. The things accomplished by the California Associated have not been original in the conception but in the carrying out. At the very first of the Kearney movements there were two proposals made. One was a busi- ness stock company or an organization under a cooperative form of asso- ciation in which every member had equal voice. It became evident that the latter form was unbusinesslike but it was also recognized that it was the only one acceptable then.

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History of Fresno County, California, with biographical sketches of the leading men and women of the county who have been identified with its growth and development from the early days to the present, Volume I, Part 27

Author: Vandor, Paul E., 1858- Publication date: 1919 Publisher: Los Angeles, Calif., Historic Record Company Number of Pages: 1362

Author: Vandor, Paul E., 1858-
Publication date: 1919
Publisher: Los Angeles, Calif., Historic Record Company
Number of Pages: 1362