OCR Text |
Show HESPEIJIDES APPLES. SWEET GOLDEN FRUIT OF A SUNNY CLIME. Fifteen Years Ago the Industry Was a Stranger In Southern California, To-IRy Her Oranges Hood fcvery Market. Five or six years ago the oranges of the eastern market came from Florida, Cuba, Messina and other European countries. The southern California production was not a prominent feature feat-ure and hardly a factor in trade. Today To-day the reverse is the ease, says a very entertaining correspondent of the Chicago Chi-cago Herald. The first picking is made about the middle of December in the San Gabriel Valley, and from the first of January, for a month or bo, the gathering continues con-tinues unabated. A few weeks previous previ-ous the wholesale shippers go the rounds of the groves. Many of them have arrangements from year to year with the owners, while many producers prefer to make new contracts each season. sea-son. The agent inspects the grove and offers so much per box or so much for the fruit on the tree, and hore the responsibility of tho owner r censes. The shipper puts on his pickers, the grower receives his check, and another anoth-er year is begun. The picking of the orange in large orange centers, such as the San Gabriel Ga-briel Valley, is announced by an addition ad-dition to the floating population. Gangs of pickers Mexicans, Chinese, Americans, men and boys gather from far and near, and the groves are filled with gay laughter and song. Everybody is at work, and if the crop in iaij;e, every one ieeis cneenui ana confident. The orange grove of the imagination is a stretch of trees filled with golden fruit, where one can lie in the soft grass and luxuriate in the sight The actual grove, while beautiful beau-tiful to the eye, is not a place for lounging, as tho ground is or should be kept plowed continually and irrigated irri-gated often by floods of water. But the trees are attractive; ever green, often showing ripe and green fruit and white blossoms at the samo time, they are an engima. At Pasadena and all through the southern country a gang of men under tho head of a leader or overseer takes possession of a grove bright and early in the morning, two or threo men being be-ing appointed to a treo, and the picking pick-ing begins. Tall stepladders enable the pickers to reach the top branches, and each orange is carefully cut from the tree, as if it is pulled and the skin broken it will soon decay. The picker wears a bag into which the fruit is dropped, which, when filled. Is handed to the washer or scrubber. The latter, generally a Chinaman, washes the black stain or rust from the fruit polishing it with a cloth, aftor which it is passed to the assorter. Sometimes Some-times a simple machine is used, a runway, run-way, so that the oranges of the samo size will all collect together. " This accomplished, each orange "is wrapped in variously colored paper and placed in the box ready for shipment A counter keeps tally of the boxes, as sometimes the owner is paid by the box as well as the picker. The orange pickers are usually a jolly lot, there being something about the business apparently that enlivens the spirits and imparts an air of jollity to the party. The Mexicans and Americans labor in harmony, but an orange-picking team composed of Chinamen and Americans appears to work the reverse. At the orange picking time the country coun-try is a marvel to the easterner. While standing among the oranges the picker looks away over grove after grove, fields of flowers acres of golden esch-scholtzias, esch-scholtzias, patches of wild daisies, bluebells and yellow violets and finally his eye rests upon the Sierra Madres, or mother mountains, rising but four or five miles distant the garden gar-den wall of this modern Hesperides. His nostrils inhale the odor of the orange blossoms, while his eyes greet ' the snow banks of a vigorous winter. The great peaks are capped with snow, and the upland blizzard is raging with unabated fury. From the vantage ground of the orange grove the wind can be seen on Mount San Antonio whirling the snow in gigantic wraiths, tossing it upward in huge clouds that rise hundreds of feet, to be borne away over the lowland and dissipated. With eyes on this arctic scene the observer can scarce believe the facts, scarce realize real-ize that he can by a single glance encompass encom-pass winter and summer. The orange picker, however, has no time to spend on the aesthetics of the subject; he is picking against time, and an eager East is waiting. |