(10) The Fruit Districts.—The fruit districts of the United States are very irregularly scattered. They include the grape, prune, and orange districts of California, the orange groves of Florida, the grape farms east of Lake Michigan and on the New York shores of Lake Ontario, the peach orchards in New Jersey, and the apple orchards of Oregon, New York, and New England. Therefore, Fresno County in California, the example here given, does not represent the general condition so well as do our other examples. On the whole; however, the other fruit-raising districts resemble those of Fresno in having farms of moderate but not excessive size and relatively high value. They are operated by the owners with relatively few tenants, but in most of the fruit districts the number of native white farmers is greater than the 50 per cent of Fresno County. Allowing one-fourth (Col. N) for the value of young animals raised each year, a Fresno fruit farmer in 1919 receives an income of about $1750 from various minor sources and 750 from fruit and vegetables. On many of the Fresno farms grapes form by far the larger part of the Products. Here, as in many other fruit farms, the one-crop type of agriculture is rather strongly developed. It is less dangerous here, however, than in the wheat belt for example, since abundant facilities for irrigation prevent the yield from varying so much as in non-irrigated regions. In the East, a failure of the apple
crop, such as occurred in New England in 1921, is a serious matter for the fruit farmer. Nevertheless, the fruit farmers all over the country are unusually prosperous. The high proportion of intelligent men among them is one reason why cooperation is unusually well developed, as explained in Chapter XI.
Taken as a whole the agriculture of the United States stands on a peculiarly firm basis. It is so varied that no probable conditions of weather or any other natural disaster are likely to throw the whole country into distress. The crops in one region may fail, but those in others are almost sure to be good. Railroads and other facilities of com munication are so well developed that only in a few areas like the Alle gheny Plateau are the farmers either unable to market their crops fairly cheaply and promptly or to bring in supplies and go out to find work elsewhere when the crops are poor. In addition to all this there are few countries where scientific agriculture is progressing more rapidly under the guidance of a great national Department of Agriculture and of large numbers of Agricultural Colleges and Experiment Stations. Farming will always be the most important of all occupations, for i% provides the food and raw materials to support the other major indus tries. The United States is fortunate in having such highly develope and successful agriculture.