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 30

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 30

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California's corn crop was doubled in 1917 and the bean and oats crops trebled during this year when war's demands called for increase in staple

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HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY

farm products. Green fruit production during 1917 gives the county's orange crop at 300 cars or 114,000 boxes valued at one dollar and twenty-five cents a box at $142,000. The oranges are chiefly from the pioneer Centerville dis- trict, the nearby Sanger and the later developed Wahtoke district. The acre- age in bearing is only 400 or 500, though in the Wahtoke district 2,000 acres have been planted.

The plum production will not exceed 100 cars valued at $52,000. There are 72,788 olive trees in bearing in the county and it is fifth in the state for olive production. The county's acreage under irrigation in crop is 259,607, under irrigation not in crop 76,311 and 10,075 summer fallowed.

In hay and forage the county ranks third with a $2,000,000 1917 product. The Turkish tobacco output of Fresno and Tulare with the only available figures those of the joint production is of about 200,000 pounds. The bee colonies in the county exceed 10,000. The production is in round figures 700,000 pounds of honey and upwards of 8,500 in wax. In ordinary years the county ships 20,000 cases of honey annually which at 1917's prices would represent $240,000. The 1917 harvest was only one-fourth of the normal, valued at $60,000.

According to the Forest Service report the state's lumber cut in 1917 leads all records. It places the cut at 1,424,000,000 feet board measure ex- ceeding the 1916 cut by about 4,000,000, the 1917 figures representing fif- teen mills less than reporting the year before, but indicating greater activity on the part of individual mills in meeting demands of the war. Mills to the number of 169 reported for 1917 a cut of 1,417,068,400 feet, with 1,317,- 245,000 as the output of the forty-eight larger mills. In the cut are repre- sented the following :

Redwood

487,458,000

Western Pine

478,458,000

Douglass Fir

156,083,000

Sugar Pine

127,951,000

White Fir

120,661,000

Cedar

21,310,000

Spruce

20,659,000

In Fresno County lumber interests were not active. The Shaver mills were not in operation and the mill at Hume cut about 20,000,000 feet. It had shut down two weeks when on the morning of November 3, 1917, it was visited by fire causing a loss of half a million.

Estimates of other products increasing the aggregate wealth of the county and not including lumber and oil are these for the year 1917:

Manufacturing

$3,200,000

Canned Fruit

3,120,000

Dairy Products

2,850,000

Minerals

2,225,000

Nursery Stock

860,000

Poultry and Eggs

510,000

Melons

290,000

Wool and Mohair

160,000

The fruit item above recalls that twenty-five years ago when the first small cannery had been in operation here two years the San Francisco canners held obstinately to the theory that deciduous fruits grown on the irrigated soil of Fresno were unfit for canning. 12

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HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY

CHAPTER XXXVII

ROMANTIC SIDE OF HORTICULTURE. THE STORY OF THE MINUTE FIG WASP IN THE INTRODUCTION OF A COMING INDUSTRY. EARLY EXPERIMENTATION IN CAPRIFICATION. FRESNO FURNISHES HALF OF THE FIG CROP. COMMERCIALIZATION OF THE BLACK MISSION. GRAPE INDUSTRY OF VALLEY TO BE REVOLUTIONIZED. MAGNITUDE OF THE DRIED FRUIT OUTPUT. THE RABBIT DRIVE AS A SPORT OF THE VALLEY. CALIFORNIA THE LAND FOR SCI- ENTIFIC FARMING.

Horticulture in California has its romantic side. No phase of it is more striking than that of the introduction of the fig wasp with the result of an industry yet in its infancy that in time may equal the grape, the peach, or the raisin outputs.

As interesting is the history of the searches for and discoveries in for- eign lands and the importation and home progagation of beneficial insects that wage relentless warfare on the harmful tree and vine pests.

The state horticultural commissioner has discovered a new field for the California ladybird beetle that has played such an important part in nature's economy. It is to be sent for colonization to the melon patches in Southern California to make war there on the destructive vine bugs. A wonderful and entrancingly interesting work is being prosecuted by the state horticultural board and the Department of Agriculture in the line of natural economics with these numerous and varied beneficial insects. The future of important fruit and vine crops has been saved by the introduction, propagation and naturalization in California of these insects. "Bugology," as it has been popularly termed, has become an important scientific branch of horticulture.

The fig wasp is hardly larger than the gnat, but to propagate it in Fresno for the commercial production of the dried Smyrna fig has cost thousands of dollars, years of discouraging effort and journeys to the Orient for sojourns in the districts where it makes its home. Consular service, the resources of the Department of Agriculture and the enterprise and money of private experimenters overcame difficulties with the result of an industry that yields half a million dollars annually to California orchardists and which with time may attain great proportions.

The fig has long been cultivated in this state, but Turkey, Algeria and other countries on the Mediterranean held the dried fig trade as a monopoly. The home product was so inferior despite fruitfulness of trees that compe- tition was out of the question. California varieties were the Mission figs introduced by the Franciscan padres more than a century ago, and the later European imported White Adriatic. Dried, the home article commanded from seven and one-half to ten cents a pound in the market when no Smyrna figs were on hand. It was theorized that the fault lay in the California cultivated variety. Introduction of the Smyrna followed with a shipment in 1879 by G. P. Rexford of the San Francisco Bulletin. The consul at Smyrna assisting, thousands of cuttings were imported and distributed among nurserymen and growers. They rooted readily, but the fruit never grew large and fell from the trees as the experience of years. The only explanation was that there had been an imposition with a worthless variety to defeat introduction of the true Smyrna fig in America.

Some dug up their trees: a few let theirs stand as ornamentals and warnings against embracing a fad too readily. Most of the Black Missions

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HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY

were planted along ditches as borders or wind breaks. F. Roeding and his son, George C., of Fresno, scientific nurserymen, were among the earliest interested and in 1886 sent W. C. West to Smyrna to investigate. He learned things that would not have been believed butt for confirmation by Dr. Gus- tav Eisen of the California Academy of Sciences in discovered ancient writ- ings of the practice of Orientals in picking the wild or Capri figs at a cer- tain time of the year and hanging them in the branches of the cultivated trees. And what Dr. Eisen discovered in ancient tomes, concerning the minute insect that issued from the wild fig and entered the cultivated to fertilize the latter with pollen and thus cause them to mature, West learned by observation in the Maeander River Valley, the world's principal supply source of the Smyrna fig.

California figs contained "mule flowers," as they were called. Fruit progressed to maturation without agency of wasp, seeds were hollow fruit inferior in flavor and deficient in sweetness. The Smyrna containing only female blossoms, will not mature unless fertilized by pollen from the Capri fig, and this is the life work of the blastophaga grossorum, the little wasp that breeds in the Capri fig. The process of transferring this pollen has given rise to the term "caprification." and to enable the wasp to perform this function the practice of the Orientals has been for ages to hang the Capri figs among the branches of the Smyrna trees yielding the fig of com- merce. The Capri fig is in fig producing lands an article of commerce for the very insects that it contains. Strange indeed that California fruit men were so slow in discovering the reason for their failures with Smyrna trees. But it was the fact nevertheless. The bug story provoked ridicule. The Roedings constituted themselves the champions of the blastophaga and made plantings of the two cuttings sent on by West. In 1890 they bore and arti- ficial pollenization was attempted. The fertilized fruit matured, but the figs were still inferior to the imported. The experimentation of several years was successful in part only, and the conclusion was that the wasp must be naturalized, or the effort in California to grow Smyrna figs abandoned.

Capri figs were imported in June, 1892, and hung in trees covered with cloth to prevent escape of the insects. Other shipments followed but all to no satisfactory purpose. The Secretary of Agriculture was induced in 1897 to take up the subject with the result of more recorded failures. Finally out of a lot sent in 1899, each fig wrapped in tinfoil and all in cotton in a wooden case, the insects emerged and fertilized orchard growing fruit dur- ing the summer. They bred, passing through several generations. The hibernation period was outlived and next summer the Capris were trans- ferred to the Smyrnas. A crop of fifteen tons was harvested, tested chem- ically and found to contain one and four-tenths percent. more sugar than the imported. The problem of producing commercially valuable California dried figs was solved. In overcoming the difficulties, the Department of Agriculture has the credit of importing the insects and Mr. Roeding of naturalizing them in the long and wearisome experimental processes, bear- ing the financial loss of the failures and the ridicule in assuming that such an insignificant insect should play such an important part in nature's econ- omy. In May, 1901, Mr. Roeding went to Smyrna to familiarize himself with details of caprification, curing and packing. The nature of his mission preceded him and he found the people averse to teach a threatened com- petitor. The benefit of his information and experiences he has given in a book, "The Smyrna Fig at Home and Abroad."

And thus by accident it was that in June, 1899, the discovery was made after persistent effort and discouraging trials that the little gnat or wasp had consented to be listed among the prize emigrants. The wasp was alive and propagating in some of the Capri figs sent in March and April of 1898 and 1899. The fig growers of Asia Minor, who had practised caprification

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HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY

for over a thousand years, had been found to be amazingly ignorant. They knew that figs cannot be obtained without the agency of the little insect but in what manner it benefits the figs or how it propagates was a sealed book to them.

California is practically a lone producer of the fig in commercial quan- tities, with Fresno as the leading grower of what has been described as "perhaps the grandest fruit tree of California." The White Adriatic was largely planted from 1884 to 1897. Markarian introducing and planting it as a vineyard border tree, and ten years later packing the fruit. In 1897 as stated, the Smyrna was introduced by George C. Roeding and he origi- nated an important fruit industry with his improved caprified "Calimyrna." The fig industry generally faces such a hopeful outlook that as a result of an institute held in Fresno in January, 1917, the growers of the state and especially of the San Joaquin Valley took steps to organize for the marketing of crops on a better business basis. As a result of the preliminary pool, when only ten to twenty percent. of the fig area had been signed, two-cent selling prices of a few years ago advanced from five to ten cents according to variety.

Problems confronting the fig men are not the same that face raisin and peach growers, though many belong to both organizations. They have long considered their border trees as a side issue without realizing their true market value until of late. The fig man is having much the same ex- perience as the raisin and peach grower has had dealing individually with the packer. Congratulating himself that he is securing a top price, not until after sale or contract signature does he learn in comparing notes with neighbors that he has not been favored but often that he has been dis- criminated against.

On account of the European war, Asia Minor fig importations have been cut off for two years, this import being about 18,000 tons annually. About 1,500 tons for each of the two years have come to America from Por- tugal and Spain, a tonnage that usually goes to Denmark, Norway and Sweden. This diverted supply is what is known as a manufacturing or baker's fig and does not compete with the California fig as the true Smyrna does. This state produces from 6,000 to 8,000 tons of figs yearly. The prod- uct is annually increasing by reason of new plantings, so that with normal imports there should be over 25,000 tons of figs on the market, with a hold over crop in most years.

While the imports are cut off, California growers are producing nearly all the dried figs consumed in the United States, and over fifty percent. of this crop is raised in Fresno County. It will be several years probably after the war ceases before the tonnage of import will equal that before the war. Report is that many fig trees in the foreign centers have been ruined or cut back for fuel. This would set back their crops for some years, and as the last two years' crops have been consumed there is no danger of a large accu- mulation of foreign figs to crowd the American markets after the war.

And while on the subject of this war there is the interesting circum- stance that in March, 1918, the University of California rejected all bids for the fig crop of the Kearney Farm in Fresno, although they ranged near $23,000 for a crop that theretofore had sold on the trees for $3,000 to $5,500. It was probably the first time in history that a producer had refused a price because it was deemed too high. The university men declared they would not take advantage of offers that were out of proportion to the value of the fruit or at least were greatly inflated. There are some 2,100 trees on the estate practically all on the borders. Some are poor producers, others among the best in the county. Most of them are the white Adriatics. Some fig crops in the county were bought up- at thirteen and thirteen and one-half cents a pound ; some even higher.

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HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY

REVOLUTIONIZING THE GRAPE INDUSTRY

Pomologist George C. Husmann in charge of viticultural investigations for the United States Department of Agriculture, has made announcement of successful experiments in currant and table grape varieties that may revolutionize the grape industry of the valley. The currant varieties have been tested on resistant stock and results have been secured to make it certain that the grape will thrive here. Many vines at the experimental plot yielded sixty to eighty pounds to the vine and some have gone higher. Over 50,000,000 pounds of currants from this small grape are imported yearly, and the Department of Agriculture believes this industry can be switched to the San Joaquin Valley. The fruit is said to be a delicious eat- ing grape, as well as a currant grape, and capable of being shipped to long distances.

Experiments with the Black Minukka, a large berried, big clustered seedless grape of the Thompson Seedless family, demonstrated it to be a good shipping grape. It is said to surpass in flavor nearly all other varieties. A grape that may supplant the Emperor is the Hunisa. It ripens at about the same time, packs well and is in keeping and shipping qualities the equal of any, while better flavored than most. Experiments with this variety have shown that it will grow in this valley, and should bring greater returns than the Emperor, which it has almost supplanted in other districts. The belief is that those varieties combining flavor and quality with shipping capability will sell best in the eastern markets. Many in the East are disappointed in Tokays because they lack flavor.

According to the State Agricultural Society, the California dried fruit industry made noteworthy gains during the year 1915, and the following figures indicate the magnitude it has attained. The value of all imported fruit in 1913, including dates, Greek currants and bananas was $32,100,392; in 1914 $32,235,011 and in 1915 $23,046,778. The largest falling off was in figs from 20,506,000 pounds to 8,327.000, while olives dropped from 5,743,000 gallons to 3,713,000, indicative that the state crops are becoming large enough to supply the country's demands without going abroad. Exports of domestic dried fruits increased from $28,868,000 to $36,924,000, indicating what strides the horticultural interests are making. Raisin importations which a few years ago were 40,000,000 pounds have been reduced to 1,604,000, the lowest on record. Records steadfastly show that imports of raisins have decreased while exports increased.

Notable changes are in dried apricots from 16,541,000 pounds in 1914 to 25,747,000 in 1915, the bulk going to England. Exports of oranges de- creased from 1,839,000 boxes to 1,588,000, nearly all of which for the two years went to Canada. Dried peaches increased from 7,387,000 pounds to 18,720,000. Exports of California prunes increased from 35,228,000 to 50,- 775,000 pounds, 15,677,000 going to England, 10,941,000 to Canada and 18,- 572,000 to other European countries. Exports of raisins make a remarkable showing in an advance from 16,594,000 pounds for the calendar year of 1913 to 21,688,000 in 1914 and 58,497,000 during the twelve months of 1915, demonstrating the results achieved by the California Associated Raisin Company.

THE RABBIT DRIVE AS A SPORT

The early colony settlers bore up with experiences to try the patience of the bravest, as in the times of "dry farming," when a band of roaming cattle would in a few hours over night devastate an entire grainfield. With budding vines, rootings, sprouting tree cuttings, germinating alfalfa or grain seed, grasshoppers have swooped down like a cloud and devoured every vestige of green above ground. The jack-rabbit, with which the coun-

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HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY

try was infested, was the most formidable competitor. Bunny was a prolific breeder, and to reduce the species to save entire crops from destruction the rabbit drive was a valley conception. Rabbit proof wire fencing, tubular tree protectors and poison were no protection. The drive was made the occasion of a popular outpouring and a community recreation, cruel as was the sport as some classified the drive.

Described in brief the drive required a large wire-screen fenced-in corral, seven feet high, varying in diameter, the entrance narrow and chute like, provided with gate and the corral approached by lateral wings spread- ing half a mile and more in length screened three feet high. Men, women, children in carriages, vehicles of every description, on horse, afoot, were started often by the quickstep of a band in a line abreast and with whoop-up and as much noise as possible moved over the land to be covered, driving the rabbits in the brush and everything else in front of them in the direction of the corral. The aim was to continually move forward and to keep the rabbits before and prevent retreat to the rear of the onmoving line. Excite- ment ran high as the rabbits were driven between the wings to certain de- struction, rushing and crowding into the corral, frightened almost to death by the roar of shouts and yells.

Once driven in in solid living mass, the gate was closed and the indis- criminate slaughter began in the corral to the accompanying shouts and noice of the excited populace and the terrified almost human cries of Bunny. Hundreds committed suicide by rushing against the wire fence and knock- ing themselves senseless. Corral fence was lined outside with onlooking busy spectators to knock on the head any rabbit attempting to force an escape under the wire. The bloody work within the corral was swiftly accomplished in time. Sometimes the effort was made to count the slaughter. As often it was not. Often the corral and the entrance would be covered several feet deep with carcasses of dead rabbits. The slaughter was fre- quently immense. These two-hour drives were attended by hundreds and even by thousands, exciting as much popular interest at first as the old time rodeo.

Coyotes, badgers, skunks and other animals were not infrequently caught in the drive to death. Carcasses were taken away to hogs and chick- ens, but the greater part was left on the field to be later buried. These drives had their effect for a time in districts in depopulating the Bunny tribe. The destruction of the rabbit as well as that of the ground squirrel was at all times encouraged. The interests of the farmer demanded it in self preserva- tion. The encouragement took the form at various periods in five-dollar bounty for a coyote scalp, five cents on rabbit and ground squirrel and two cents on gopher, appropriations by the county for wire fencing for com- munal district drives, extermination by poison and campaign taken up and conducted on systematic lines by federal authority as a measure against the spread of bubonic plague and communicable diseases "for the destruction of agricultural pests serving no known purpose in nature's economic plan."

With the passing of the years, the rabbit drive as a sport unique in the San Joaquin Valley was neglected and became almost unknown to the younger generation. It was with the increase of the rabbits revived on a comparatively small scale as community affairs during the 1917-18 season with the introduction of the farm adviser bureau. A fish packing company from Monterey was in the field with offer to buy up the carcasses for canning in an expected meat food scarcity by reason of the war. These revived drives, however, lacked the popular, picturesque and spectacular features of those of the early days of farming on the plains when they were gala occa- sions attended by the thousands as on the lines of the rodeos of the cattle days.

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HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY

Romance? The greatest chapter in the story of the state and of the county is that which tells of the farm and the marvelous transformation from the mining camp to the farm-the small farm with the certain and lasting wealth greater than all that was wrung from mine and placer. Nord- hoff of whom allusion has been made before was enamored of California even in the infant days of farming and was amazed with what he beheld in the big interior valleys, likening the San Joaquin to "a region as rich as the Nile." Contrasting what he saw in 1871 and what he beheld ten years later in this valley, he remarked:

"The remarkable change that came about is due to the small farmers, for it was they who year after year discovered what the soil and climate produced best, perfecting raisin culture, proving the value of the apricot and prune, the olive, the fig, the orange and lemon, etc., introducing prac- tically the profitable dried fruit business and bringing alfalfa, the boon of the small farmer, to its greatest development perfection. This was accom- plished by the small farmers when they were comparatively few as to num- bers. They sought at first the plain, because it was the most available place, instead of the sheltered foothill lands which the grain men had appropriated. Experience has demonstrated that the settlement of small farmers in colonies is the ideal condition rather than the scattered individual farms for many and obvious reasons."

And his final word to all who might turn their faces toward California was that it is no country for idlers or "clerks," but "a paradise for men who will work with their hands, and the better if they will also put brains into their work."

CHAPTER XXXVIII

POSSIBILITIES OF COTTON CULTURE IN THE VALLEY. WARNING IS GIVEN AGAINST A REPETITION OF THE MISTAKES AFTER THE CIVIL WAR. THE EGYPTIAN VARIETY IS RECOMMENDED. FIG PRODUCTION WILL PLAY AN IMPORTANT ROLE. FOUR VARIETIES ARE OF DEMONSTRATED WORTH. CURRANT GRAPE IS ANOTHER COMMERCIAL FACTOR OF THE RAISIN BELT IN COMPETITION WITH THE OLD WORLD.

Three new agricultural possibilities are receiving attention in Fresno County-cotton, fig and currant grape growing, besides the experimenta- tions with rice and Turkish tobacco. A revival of interest in the possibilities of cotton culture resulted in the Sacramento and San Joaquin Valleys from favorable reports of experimental plantings. The idea that cotton could become an important crop in California has been persistent with the rapid development of the production in recent years in the Imperial and Colorado Valleys.

The warning is given by the Department of Agriculture that the mis- takes of the ante bellum efforts of the 60's be not repeated. In the period of high prices following the Civil War, short staple cotton was grown in commercial quantities in this valley, and importations of Southern negroes were even made to promote its culture. The efforts were abandoned as soon as normal conditions were restored in the southern states. European war conditions and high prices are making even short staple cotton a prof- itable Californian crop, but there is little prospect of maintaining a short staple industry after normal conditions are again restored.

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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 30

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