THE FLOWERS OF THE FAR WEST.
For centuries the rose--the queen of flowers--has been a never ceasing
inspiration to poets and writers. Every bard has sung his lay to the
majesty of this peerless flower.
Every ancient country has its rose traditions. Fashions do not assail
the rose, only in specialty and variety.
The unanimity characterizing its nomenclature is but another feature in
the unvarying and universal popularity of the rose.
All research fails to reveal the white rose as known to the ancients;
the Greek word "rodon," ruddy, being used synonymously by all countries.
It was the flower dedicated to love--to Cupid and Venus. Cupid bestowed
it as an emblem upon Harpocrates, the god of silence, to bind him not to
betray the evil of his mother, Venus. In consequence the rose became
symbolical of silence, and was gracefully distributed on the guest-table
as a delicate reminder that all confidences should be respected. Comus,
deity of the table, Hebe and Ganymede, nectar-bearers to the gods, were
crowned with roses. The rose is typical of youth as well as beauty.
During the greatest opulency of the ancient empires its purity was often
sullied by effeminacy and sensuality.
Who has not heard of the roses of the valley of Cashmere? Who has not
longed to behold their exquisite perfection? Who, in contemplating the
forms and colors, the lights and shadows of Flora's choicest blooms, has
not found language failing in fineness to express the delicate
eloquence of the rose? Who, in cultivating it, has not felt solicitude
and affection for these creatures of the garden? Who has not had his
anger excited in beholding a bud ruthlessly torn by sacrilegious hands
and has not looked upon the broken stem as he would upon a bleeding
artery? Who, in cultivating roses, has not spiritually felt the better
for it? The subtlety of its fragrance, the grace of its form, the
perfect harmony of its tones appeal to the imagination like music to the
soul. In the whole range of nature's variety and completeness nothing so
satisfies the idea of perfection as the rose. 'Tis grace idealized and
the quintessence of beauty in its flowing lines and curves.
The relative position of the rose to its stem suggests majesty; its
color in contrast to its leaves, completeness; the unfolding of its
petals, grace; its tintings fulfill that esthetic delight, harmony; its
fragrance, the sublimated breath of a fairer existence. In all candor,
does it not more than satisfy the degree superlative?
Nature has richly endowed the earth with roses. Every country can offer
its wild-rose tributes on Flora's shrine, with but one single exception,
and that Australia. There are over eighty varieties of the wild rose
known, the greater number being indigenous to Asia.
With experimenting and cultivating, varieties of roses have multiplied
by hundreds; and rose culture, like everything else in this nineteenth
century, has become a science.
Roses are like children, requiring warmth and affection. In a mild
climate, where the seasons do not vary greatly in regard to temperature,
the rose outvies tradition itself, and unfolds and matures with a
regularity quite astonishing.
California climate is nature's elected home for roses. In almost any
portion of the State removed from the immediate harsh influences of the
coast, roses revel, from the tiniest boutonniere rose, with its pert
little face, to that great lusty fellow, big as a large saucer and as
hardy as a cabbage.
To the old residents, no rose in California appeals more to the poetical
sense than the old Castilian, one of the oldest varieties in the State,
and one now greatly despised by its more fortunate and voluptuous
sisters. The fragrance of this rose is incomparable, its color an
intense glowing old pink, its foliage painfully disappointing. Having
such a vigorous and healthy trunk and lusty system of roots, the
Castilian is employed largely to graft other stock upon.
An ideal climate should produce nothing but ideal forms. This natural
and just hypothesis is amply proven in presenting the full array of
California roses as evidence. What better class of evidence could be
desired?
There are several general groups into which California roses are usually
divided: Tea roses, Bourbon roses, hybrid perpetual roses, China or
Bengal roses, moss and climbing roses.
Of these classes, but several can be mentioned. Roses, as a theme, are
practically inexhaustible, and the few kinds that appeal most strongly
to the writer's sympathies will receive a passing word.
A rose-covered cottage, the material expression of peace, lowliness,
beauty, and picturesqueness; a picture that most of us mirror in our
minds in youth as connected with great and simple happiness. Many of the
old Spanish houses of California are overrun with climbing roses. These
old houses, simple in style of architecture, broad and square in
appearance, are inviting abodes for the clinging loveliness of
California's climbers.
Some fine April morning take a little trip to San Rafael, one of San
Francisco's suburban villages. In this hill-girth town blooms the
fairest rose of all the climbers. Some call it the "San Rafael Rose,"
others the "Beauty of Blazenwood."
The trunk rises bare and sturdily from the ground; as it approaches the
top of a porch it spreads and bursts forth into a cloud of tawny yellow
loveliness. Each rose presses hard upon its neighbor until special fancy
is lost in the bewildering mass of bloom.
In this rose, the palest cream tint to the richest glowing apricot tones
are observable. Frequently here a dash of color almost vermilion is
discovered; there a long slender-necked bud thrusts forth its head, as
in derision to its closely-packed companions.
These roses are not very double, and a mass of their bloom presents
features of ragged, wild grace; the vivid colors enthrall, hasty steps
are slackened to gaze at this golden corona of smiling April.
The brilliant William Allen Richardson, the mellow-toned and
sweet-breathed Salina Forrester, the lusty-growing and superb bearing
Reve d'Or, the daintily flowering and enameled-leaved single white
Cherokee, the prolific blooming and tiny-flowered Lady Banksia, and
California's old stand-by, the Lamarque, a profusely bearing, many
petaled white rose, perfect in all stages of development, and very
handsome foliage.
In many of the old towns of California may be seen rose trees of really
enormous size.
The writer saw a Duchesse de Brabant rose tree in Colusa County at least
nine feet high and thirty feet or more in circumference. It was covered
with hundreds of silvery pink roses; the trunk looked scraggy, and was
probably twelve inches in circumference. Such a case is rare, however.
The Loretta is a rose of exquisite texture, of a creamy tone, and
petals as clear-cut and dainty as a cameo. Too much praise can not be
showered upon this long-stemmed vigorous grower. Such a galaxy of
beautiful roses, each clamoring for recognition, that the only way to
render justice is to stop right short and write nothing more.
The La France roses, Perle de Gardin, Marie Van Houtte, Archduc, Charles
Catharine Mermet, Homer, Papa Gontier, Jacqueminot, and hundreds of
others that nothing short of a book can satisfy their vanity and express
their many graces.
The western coast of Europe and the western coast of America have about
the same annual mean temperature--50° Fahrenheit, with a limit of 51°
30" of north latitude.
The Pacific Coast has greatly the advantage over western Europe, in that
the extremes of heat and cold are nearer together, a characteristic that
is attributable to two paramount causes: Firstly, the Japanese current
emanating from the Indian Ocean. The main body of this heated water
sweeps toward the west coast of America, turns easterly and southerly,
helping to produce a delightful insular climate along the coast of
Oregon and California. Secondly, the mountain barriers upon the east and
north; the sheltering influences of the Sierra Nevadas and Cascade
mountains as they reach the coast of Alaska encircling its southern and
western coasts, thus cutting off the polar winds that would otherwise
flow over Oregon and California.
The State possesses three distinct climates, that of the coast, valleys,
and mountains, similar in the matter of seasons, but otherwise totally
dissimilar.
Degrees of latitude have no bearing upon fruit culture in California,
for it is an ascertained fact that fruits ripen earlier in the north
than in the south of the State.
Horticulture and geographical situations have nothing in common. In
other regions one is quite dependent upon the other, but in California
horticulture laughs at geographical boundaries.
These surprising conditions depend wholly upon topography, and consist
not in parallels of latitude, but by topographical curves varying in
direction and governed by deposit and natural formation, altitude,
rainfall, and temperature.
What is known as the Citrus Belt of California is a great valley lying
between the Coast Range on the west and the Sierra Nevadas on the east,
and runs in a direction northwest to southeast, and extends from Red
Bluff on the north to the Tejon Mountains on the south. The total area
is about 17,200 square miles. This great valley contains about one-half
of all the fruit trees and a third of all the vines in the State. Within
the limits of this belt to the northernmost boundaries, in favored spots
the orange flourishes side by side with the apple.
Immense tracts of this great valley are used for agricultural and
pasturage purposes, and, as yet, orchards occupy but an insignificant
area of this immense valley.
Several characteristics of the California climate and soil conjoin not
only to produce glorious flowers, both wild and cultivated, but the
greatest possible variety of fruits and berries. The abundant heat,
almost perennial sunshine, and dry atmosphere, together with the fine
adaptability of the soil and the great length of the growing season,
join forces to produce fruits of superior size and excellence. The trees
are amazingly prolific bearers, and also produce mammoth fruit.
All conscientious horticulturists resort to the "thinning out" process
in order to preserve the quality and size of what they allow to remain
on the trees.
The fruit industry in California, in spite of the immense crops matured
every year, is but in its infancy. Millions of trees and vines are not
yet in bearing, or only yielding third, fourth, and fifth year crops.
Since the formation of the Fruit Growers' Union in 1881, when the first
law was enacted to protect California horticulturists, there has been
steady progress and practical expenditure of brains and money to further
the interests, in every way possible, of the fruit growers of
California.
Horticulture has been reduced to a science by disseminating knowledge
and a hearty coöperation of fruit growers to extend the interests of the
State in every way possible.
The history of horticulture in the State of California almost up to the
present time has been one of experimenting, ascertaining the
adaptability of the soil to certain kinds of fruits, and testing what
European and Eastern trees do well in this climate, for many varieties
make utter failures, while others are improved beyond recognition.
Californians have had to learn also that a horticultural precedent has
been established here, independent of what obtains in other countries.
Although ideas and methods have been gleaned from abroad, application to
local and special needs have metamorphosed them to a great extent.
Hap-hazard planting in California is humbug unless wedded to Yankee
shrewdness.
Know your soil and its elements, the atmosphere, heat, and moisture and
exposure; then ascertain what fruits do well under those limitations.
Clear your land, plow and sow a crop of something to mellow up the soil,
the next year plant your young trees. Climate will be your fellow-worker
and steadfast friend. Nine-twelfths of the year a man can sit down and
watch nature work. The man who complains of climate in California should
be banished from this paradise, for even the golden fruit of Hesperides
would be but clay to one whose birthright is discontent.
What will constitute California's future glory will be the division of
the lands into small holdings of from twenty acres up to about two
hundred acres; where owners give their personal supervision; where the
excellence of the fruits should be the consideration, over and above the
profits; where men who resort to practices in the business that cheapen
the standard of fruits should be forced out of the market; where every
man works for the good of the whole; where the pride of the
horticulturist, and not the greed of the speculator, obtains, and where
the specialist and student flourish. If these conditions will not make
California the greatest fruit-producing country on earth, then human
ingenuity is at fault, and not climate.
Many a tourist in coming to San Francisco, and it might be said it is
the exception when it is not so, has wondered if California fruits can
make no better showing than the sour, half-ripened fruit he partakes of;
last, but not least, the prices he pays for this fruit are so
incredulously high that he wonders if it can be possible he can be
eating imported fruit, and not the production of the California soil.
Then he compares his experience here with that abroad; at the forts
along the Mediterranean for a cent or two he can entirely satisfy a
robust appetite with luscious fruit.
California fruit growers are so busy at present over their export trade
that home consumption is relegated to the leavings, under the same
principle a cobbler's children have no shoes.
Great things are expected of the olive industry of this State. Although
the last returns showed but little over eleven thousand gallons of oil
from the last crop, there are thousands upon thousands of young trees
not yet in bearing. The oil produced is of a superior quality, and
leads the sanguine to believe that the olive crown will yet rest upon
our brows.
Fruit curing is, and will continue to be, one of the first industries of
the State. The figures for the season just passed will aggregate
48,700,000 pounds of dried fruit, nearly four-fifths of which will
represent French prunes; this is but a mere bagatelle to what the crop
will be several years hence.
The prune industry is centered in Santa Clara County; the biggest prune
orchard in the State is now in the Salinas Valley, San Luis Obispo
County. In this orchard there are 300 acres of prune trees planted in a
body, representing 324,000 trees. Prune trees make such quick returns,
four-year-old trees bear heavily.
All temperate zone and semi-tropical fruits are raised with equal
facility. Berries do superbly; strawberries, however, are too often
forced.
Fruits in California, where irrigation methods are too much employed,
depreciate in quality; the fine flavor is sacrificed for the early
ripening--a too frequent method of producers, that should be cried down.
Flavor is what makes fine fruit. Size and beauty do much in their way,
but flavor is the nectar of the gods. Size and beauty constitute the
shell, flavor is the subtle spirit that animates it.
In many localities the orchards are merely cultivated, that is, plowed
and harrowed three or four times a year, but never irrigated
artificially. In portions of the State where midsummer irrigation is
required, and where the country presents a level surface, as in Yolo
County, whole orchards are flooded with an abundant supply of water.
The raisin of late years has received a greater impetus than any other
fruit in the State. The ease with which raisin vines are propagated, the
early profits, immense crops, and excellent prices induce hundreds to
engage in the industry. About a thousand acres are set to raisin vines.
Fresno County is the center of this industry. Over 50,000,000 pounds
were produced this year, and one-third only of the vines are in bearing.
The orange crop was enormous; lemons, figs, apricots, nuts, pears,
peaches, and cherries each and all have made excellent records for
themselves.
The shipping record for the year 1890 was 16,191 car-loads, which would
make a continuous train of cars 123 miles long.
The report of the State Board of Horticulture says: "It is a significant
fact that while our wheat output has not materially increased from 1880
to 1890, our fruit output has increased more than thirty times, and is
growing with great rapidity. While the showing here made still keeps
California in the front rank of wheat-growing States, being third in the
rank, it demonstrates the great advantages of the State as a
fruit-producing country.
"In 1880 our exports of fruit brought us probably about $700,000, while
they now amount to about $20,000,000. This wonderful result has brought
with it what is above all computation, to wit: the demonstration that
fruit-growing in this State is very profitable, and is almost absolutely
safe from frosts and other drawbacks, and has practically no limit."