Part 6

Although there are lovely date palm trees on the grounds of many California homes, few of them bear fruit. The temperature must average from eighty to ninety degrees for a considerable time in the summer, in order to mature it. What is the average summer temperature in your locality?

If an ordinary tree is frost-bitten, it recovers and soon puts out a new growth; but if the crown of the date palm be frozen, the tree dies.

When the Moors went to Spain, in the eleventh century, they introduced this valuable tree which the mission fathers several hundred years later brought to Mexico and to Southern California.

How would you like to try to climb a date palm tree? Although they look so smooth and are without branches, the natives of the desert climb them without any help whatever. The trunk is always somewhat rough, and this makes it possible to ascend them.

Not all of the dates in a bunch ripen at once, so they are usually picked by hand and only the ripe ones selected. Sometimes, however, the bunches are cut off. Some dates contain so much sap that the bunches must be hung up to allow it to drain off before they can be shipped. This sap is called _date honey_, and is saved. They are sent to the coast towns in bags or boxes called _frails_. Where dates are to be sold in small quantities, they are repacked in the small boxes such as you have seen.

You know that dates are very sweet, and it is no wonder that they are, for they contain from fifty-five to sixty per cent of sugar.

The trees are often tapped, and the sap which flows out is made into sugar. Vinegar and a liquor called _arrack_ are also made from it. The leaves of the tree are made into bags and mats; from the stones a drink is made which takes the place of coffee. From the leafstalks baskets are made, while the trunk furnishes material for houses and for fences.

If the dates could speak, they could tell us many wonderful stories of the far East, of the river boats on the Nile, of the drifting sands which come so close to the river's banks, of the caravans creeping over the desert toward the green oases and then fading out of sight, bearing loads of this food to the countries where it is not produced.

THE ORANGE GROVES OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

PASADENA, CALIFORNIA, Jan. 4, 1902.

DEAR FRIEND WILL: I was very glad to receive your letter, and much surprised to know that you are living on a farm. I am glad that you described the raising of cranberries, for I did not know much about it before. When I told my teacher about getting the letter, she asked me to read it in the geography class and to show the pictures. I asked our grocery-man where he gets his cranberries, and found that some of them came from Wareham.

You are having cold weather now, I know. Is the skating good? I have not seen ice as thick as window glass since we came to California, except that delivered by the iceman. Just now there is a beautiful covering of snow on the mountains a few miles north and east of town. Just think of picking roses and callas with snow in plain sight! The snow never remains more than a day or two on these mountains.

Soon after we came to Pasadena, father bought an orange grove of twenty-five acres. We are picking the fruit now. People began to pick oranges several weeks ago, and the work will continue all winter.

Orange trees are planted about twenty feet apart, but the groves do not look as apple orchards do in the East, for no grass is allowed to grow in them.

The best orange section is east of here, near Redlands and Riverside, but some good fruit is raised near Pasadena also.

Father keeps our trees pruned down rather low, so that it is easier to pick the oranges than it would be if they were allowed to grow very tall.

Orange raising is like cranberry growing in one way--the land must be irrigated in each case. Here the water is piped from the mountain streams and from tunnels. We form basins about ten feet square around each tree and fill them with water. Most of our irrigating is done during the summer, as the winter is our rainy season. _You_ would not call it a very rainy time. Our average is about twenty inches for the whole year.

The trees in our grove have been set out about six years, and they are bearing nicely now. Orange trees begin to bear when they are four years old; so, you see, we have to wait a little longer for a crop than you do for a crop of cranberries. It costs a good deal to start an orange grove. Trees cost from one dollar to one and one-half dollars each at the nurseries. A few years ago they sold for twenty cents each.

I wish that you could see the trees when they are in full blossom, and also when they are loaded with the golden fruit. I am going to put some orange blossoms into the envelope, but I am afraid they will not reach you in very good condition. They are very fragrant, and you can smell their perfume some distance from a tree in blossom.

To-day we picked about two hundred and fifty boxes of oranges. We always speak of _picking_ them, although they are not picked, but cut. You see, if they were picked off, the part where the stem pulled off would soon begin to decay.

We take a wagon load of fruit boxes, and, while father drives slowly between the rows of trees, I throw them off.

Each picker carries a sack slung over one shoulder, and as fast as he cuts off an orange, he drops it into the sack. The sacks are emptied into the boxes, and these are loaded on to the wagon. Father pays five cents a box for picking, and a good picker will gather about forty boxes in a day.

We sell most of our oranges to fruit companies. These companies pack and ship the fruit. At the packing houses the oranges are placed in tubs of water and scrubbed with small brushes. Many women, girls, and boys work at this. The washing is to take off dirt, and also _scale_.

After the oranges are washed, they are placed in a sort of trough which is highest at the end near the tub. They roll down this trough to the _grader_. This is a machine so arranged that the oranges pass through different openings according to their size, and come out sorted.

In the warehouse close by they are wrapped and packed. Chinamen often do this work. Each orange is wrapped in a separate piece of paper, which has the brand of the company stamped upon it. It is then packed firmly in a box. A certain number of oranges of each grade fill a box, ninety-six of the largest grade, and about two hundred of the smallest. Those which are too small, as well as the imperfect oranges, are rejected. These are called _culls_. Sometimes these are sold for a low price, and sometimes they are thrown away by wagon loads.

After the boxes are filled, they are placed in special fruit cars and hurried to St. Louis, Chicago, New York, Boston, and other cities.

Yes, the Weather Bureau is of great help to fruit growers. Of course we have very little winter here, but oranges will not endure much cold. The mercury falls below the freezing point but a few times each season. On New Year's Day the temperature here was fifty-eight degrees. I looked up the Boston temperature for the same day and found that it was only four degrees above zero. When the Bureau predicts a sharp freeze, the farmers build small fires in their orchards, or turn on a good deal of water. The fires are built in small wire baskets. They make a smudge instead of a flame. The people in the raisin districts watch the weather reports pretty closely, for rain injures the drying grapes.

Growers have to _spray_ or _fumigate_ the trees to destroy the scale that I spoke of which is a great enemy of the orange, to kill the insects, and to wash off dirt. This is sometimes done by putting a great piece of canvas over the tree, forming a sort of tent which prevents the fumes from escaping. It was found that the ladybugs would eat the scale and so they were brought into California from the East. They do a great deal of good, but still we have to spray the trees.

Orange trees are raised from the seed, and the trees produced in this way are called _seedlings_. By _budding_, a fruit much better than the oranges grown on the seedling tree has been produced. There were five acres of seedlings in our grove, and father budded the trees. He cut off the limbs rather close to the trunk of the tree. Then he slipped buds from _navel_ trees into cuts made through the bark in the end of each limb left on the tree. He then wound cord tightly about the limb and put on some wax. After a time a new growth started out where these buds were placed. These new branches will bear much improved fruit.

We have a very fine variety of oranges called Washington Navels. Trees of this variety were obtained by our government from Brazil. Two of these were brought to Riverside, a town about seventy-five miles east of Pasadena, and planted on a ranch belonging to a Mr. Tibbits. They did well, and all of the trees of this variety in Southern California were obtained from these two through budding. These trees are still living.

California and Florida are the two important orange-growing states of our country. Father says the industry is much older in Florida than in our state. Florida growers can ship their fruit to market much cheaper than we can. It costs us ninety cents for each box.

Mexico, the West Indies, Italy, southern France, and Spain are also orange producers. These countries have the advantage of cheap labor, father says.

I wish that you could visit us. We would have fine times, I am sure.

The next time I write I will tell you about some of the other fruits raised in California.

Your sincere friend, FRANK.

A VISIT TO A VINEYARD

PASADENA, CALIFORNIA, Oct. 1, 1902.

DEAR FRIEND WILL: Last week father went to Fresno, which is about three hundred miles northwest of here, in the San Joaquin valley. He took me with him, and we visited some of the great vineyards and raisin-packing establishments near and in that city.

Raisins are simply dried grapes. Although there are many countries where grapes grow, there are few where raisins are made. Dew, fog, and rain injure the fruit, so that the San Joaquin valley, with its dry, hot atmosphere, is well adapted to this industry.

There are a great many different kinds of grapes but only the green variety is used in making raisins. The raisin grapes are called _muscats_. If the grapes are left on the vines long enough, they become raisins. I have picked some pretty good raisins from the vines. Of course by being spread out, they dry quicker and more evenly.

The sugar that you find on and in the raisins is not put there by the people who dry the grapes. It comes from the juice of the grape.

Grapevines grow from both roots and cuttings. Of course cuttings are the cheaper. Often they may be had for the asking. Many think that it is better to set out rooted vines than cuttings.

They are planted in rows from six feet apart to twelve or fifteen feet. During the first year the young vines will grow several feet. In the fall, when the flow of the sap has been checked by frost, the vines are pruned. A vineyard in California looks quite different from one in the East. During the winter it is simply so many rows of stumps several inches in thickness and one or two feet high. During the summer the branches grow from these stumps and produce their beautiful clusters of grapes, only to be cut off in the fall or winter.

The trimmings are generally burned in the vineyard at the same time that they are cut off. A sort of furnace made of sheet iron is fastened between two wheels and drawn by horses up and down between the rows. A man pitches the cuttings into it, and they burn as it moves along.

In the early summer men go through the vineyards sprinkling a coating of sulphur on the vines. This is to prevent mildew, which damages the fruit very much.

During the last half of August and September the grapes are picked. Sometimes the harvest continues into October. Most of the grapes had been gathered when we visited the vineyards.

When the juice of the grapes is one fourth sugar, they are ready to pick. The grower generally tells the condition by the taste and color of the fruit, although there are instruments for determining the amount of sugar.

Like oranges, grapes are cut from the vines and not picked. We saw great companies of Chinamen going through the vineyards cutting off the beautiful clusters. These they placed on shallow, wooden trays to dry. In a week or two, when the upper side of the clusters is pretty well dried, the grapes are turned. We saw the workmen place an empty tray, upside down, over the filled one. Then, holding the two together, they turned them over, and the grapes dropped into the tray that had been placed on top.

During this drying time the people watch the reports of the Weather Bureau. In some places flags are displayed when rain is expected. As a rule the grape season is over before the rains begin.

When the grapes are taken from the trays, they are placed in boxes holding about one hundred pounds each. These are called _sweat boxes_. Here the driest grapes absorb some of the moisture from the others, and the mass becomes more uniform.

After the drying process has been finished, the stems are rather brittle. To make them softer and easier to handle, the grapes are next placed in a cool room and left there for a time.

After visiting some of the vineyards, we drove to one of the great packing establishments in Fresno. These packing houses are nearly always in the cities and towns, because there help can be easily obtained. The packing house that we visited employs four hundred people, mostly girls and women.

The raisins are first placed on wooden or metal frames the size of a raisin box. These are called _forms_, and the packers are paid according to the number of forms filled. When these are filled, the raisins are carefully transferred to the boxes.

A box of raisins weighs twenty pounds, but there are half boxes and quarter boxes put up also. A paper is placed on the bottom of each box, and over the raisins another is placed. On top of this there is a fancy paper on which the name of the packer is stamped.

In most establishments there are three grades of raisins, Imperial Clusters, London Layers, and the loose and imperfect stems.

Sometimes a second crop of grapes is gathered a little later in the fall. Of course these do not dry so well because the days are shorter, it is cooler, and rains sometimes occur. On this account they are dipped in lye and then rinsed in water. The lye cracks the skin, and so the juice evaporates more quickly. These are called Valencia raisins. There is not a very good market for these, so that people do not dip them so commonly now as they used to.

We saw the machine where the raisins are _stemmed_. They pass from a hopper into a space between two woven-wire cylinders. The inner one revolves within the other. In this way the raisins are broken from the stems. They are then run through a fanning mill which cleans them, and they are finally graded by passing through screens having openings of different sizes.

Most of the seedless raisins are made from seedless grapes, but there are machines for removing the seeds from the grapes which contain them.

The superintendent of the packing house said that nearly all of the raisins that we import come from Spain, and that they are exported chiefly from the city of Malaga.

The purple and other _wine grapes_ are taken to the wineries and sold by the ton, to be made into wine.

There are many other things that I should like to write about, but my letter is a pretty long one now, so I will close.

Your loving friend, FRANK.

NUTTING

Have you ever gone into the woods on a beautiful autumn day? The bright, warm sunshine floods the earth where the trees are far apart and sifts down through the branches. All nature seems to invite you to lie down under a tree and dream. It was on such a day that Rip Van Winkle fell into his long sleep.

How pretty the trees look in their fall suits of yellow, crimson, red, and brown! What a rustling is made as your feet tread the carpet of leaves!

The breezes pass among the branches and whisper a message to the bright-colored leaves. They understand and obey. Singly, in groups, and in showers, they silently float downward. By night and by day they fall, but soon this carpet will be changed for one of white.

Listen! The leaves are not the only things that are falling. You can hear the _thump_, _thump_ of nuts as they drop from their lofty perches in the walnut and hickory-nut trees.

Sit down quietly on that log and you will soon see the busy nut gatherers. With their tails curled over their backs, they race up and down the trees, or spring from branch to branch, carrying their precious burdens to their homes in the hollows of trunk or limb. Now one sits up straight, holding a nut between his paws, and turning it slowly as he cracks and eats it. If he sees you, he whisks out of sight, or scolds you from a safe place far above the ground.

When the winter winds are whistling through the leafless trees, and snows are drifting over the ground, these little nut gatherers feast to their hearts' content.

The squirrels do not gather all of the nuts. Children and grown people enjoy nutting. When there are not enough nuts on the ground, the men and boys climb the trees to shake them off. Then everybody hunts among the leaves for the treasures.

Some of the most important nuts are walnuts, hickory nuts, hazelnuts, almonds, chestnuts, Brazil nuts, pecans, and peanuts.

Many of the hickory nuts fall out of their coverings bright and clean. Walnuts generally have to be _shucked_, and the juice stains the hands almost black.

As hazelnuts grow on bushes, they can be easily picked. They usually drop out of their burs after there have been a few frosts.

Many nuts are gathered in the woods, but in some places the trees are cultivated just as fruit trees are.

We usually eat nuts between meals, or as a dessert. They are not simply dainties, but are very valuable articles of food. In some countries the poor people depend upon them for food.

In almost any city of our country are to be found the nuts that I have mentioned, with perhaps several other kinds. These have come from different states, some from Canada, some from Brazil, and some from Spain.

I am sure you will enjoy gathering nuts of different kinds, so let us set out on a nutting expedition.

A WALNUT VACATION

How would you like to have your school close for two weeks, so that you could gather walnuts? Every year many of the boys and girls of Southern California are given a vacation just for this purpose. It is called the "walnut vacation," and occurs in the month of October.

These children do not take their baskets and go off to the woods where they can romp and play, watch the squirrels, and gather beautiful autumn leaves. They gather nuts from the trees which their parents own, for in Southern California there are many walnut ranches or groves. You see the vacation means a vacation for work instead of for play.

Walnut trees are set out in rows just as apple trees are, but their roots and branches extend to such a distance from the trunks that they need to be about twice as far apart.

The walnut harvest, which begins about the first of October, is a busy time. Men, women, boys, and girls may be seen in the groves, shaking the nuts from the trees, picking them up, and putting them into sacks.

The men shake the trees, and there is a shower of nuts to the earth. Do not go under the branches now unless you want to be pelted. A single tree has been known to yield three hundred pounds of nuts in a season.

When the trees have been given a good shaking, there are still some nuts clinging to the branches. These are obtained by shaking the limbs separately, by means of long poles, to the ends of which wire hooks are fastened. As all of the nuts do not ripen at the same time, the trees are sometimes gone over two or three times.

Now the boys, girls, and women go to work filling pails and baskets and emptying them into sacks, for they can do this work as well as men.

Usually the nuts drop out of their covering or _shuck_ when they strike the ground; but if they do not, the _shuck_ must be removed. Sometimes the covering is cut off. If you handle the nuts with your bare hands, they will be stained almost black, and you will have to let the color wear off.

The days are bright and warm, and this sort of nutting becomes rather tiresome before sundown. The work must be done and the vacation is not a very long one, so each does his part cheerfully.

When the nuts have been gathered, they are taken to the shed or place where they are to be washed. Here they are poured into a large wire cylinder which revolves in a tank filled with water. The machine is turned by a horse walking round and round, and it both washes and grades the nuts. The smaller ones pass through the meshes in the wire and are called _second grade_. The larger ones are known as _first grade_.

When the walnuts come out of the washer, they are spread out on shallow, wooden trays to dry. Sometimes several thousand trays may be seen on one ranch. They are loaded on to a small car and pushed to the part of the field where they are wanted.

If there is no foggy or cloudy weather, they will dry in about five days, but if there is, it may take ten.

After the nuts are thoroughly dried, the trays are placed on the car and pushed to the _bleacher_. This is a large box made of tarred paper. It is placed over the trays, and a quantity of sulphur is burned in it. This is simply to whiten the shells, for they sell for a higher price when they are bleached. Sometimes the nuts are whitened by dipping them into a liquid preparation.

The nuts are now sacked and marked, ready to ship. Soon after the boys and girls have finished their "walnut vacation," the nuts are on their way to the eastern part of the United States.

Most of the walnuts raised in California have soft shells. Some have such thin shells that they are called "paper shells." The walnuts that grow in the woods of Indiana, Illinois, and other states have hard shells. They are dark in color and are called _black walnuts_. The trees are quite valuable, as the wood is used in making furniture.

CHESTNUTS

Let us go on a chestnutting expedition to the southern part of France. We can gather the nuts in many of the states of our own country, but the trip to a strange land will be enjoyed by all.

The chestnut trees, many of which are very old, spread their branches to great distances. The nuts, as you see, are inclosed in a _bur_ or coat which covers the shell. There are generally two nuts in each bur.

When _you_ eat chestnuts, you eat them as a sort of dainty, not as a regular article of food. This is not the case in the home of Jean, the boy who is helping his father fill those sacks. In his home, as in many homes in southern Europe, the nuts form one of the chief articles of daily food.

In the winter Jean sells the freshly roasted nuts on a street corner in the city of Lyons. He gets a good many pennies each noon from workmen and poor people generally, who use them for their midday meal. He sells ten nuts for a penny.