Of deciduous orchard trees there were in the State, in 1916: Apples, 61,752 acres; apri cots, 96,716 acres; cherries, 13,484 acres; figs, 10,872 acres; peaches, 107,971 acres; pears, 40, 324 acres; plums, 22,805 acres; others, 19,000 acres; a total of 372,924 acres planted to de ciduous orchard trees. In 1916 the shipments of fresh deciduous fruit from 50 counties of northern California were 17,890 carloads; from the seven counties of southern California 450 carloads, having a total value of $29,500,000.
In 1916 the citrus fruits (orange, lemon and grape-fruit, nearly all from southern Cali fornia), were 192,607 acres; shipments reached a total of 45,083 carloads, valued at $41,348,000.
Dates were recently introduced from the Almonds and walnuts are not produced elsewhere in the United States. Both crops have more than quadrupled in a decade. In 1916 the yield was, for California, 3,400 tons of almonds and 12,800 tons of walnuts.
California produces 95 per cent of the United States almond crop; and over four times the nation's importation of this nut. The aguacate, avocado or alligator pear (from Guatemala) is of recent introduction, but there are already over 35,000 trees in southern California; and the ordinary income is $200 per tree— the fruits selling as rarities at 50 cents to $1.25 each. In the last census year the number of plum and prune trees was greater than the total number of all deciduous orchard trees 10 years before. The number of apricot trees had more than doubled in the decade.
Total number of semi-tropical fruit trees had increased from 1,809,161 to 8,996,459 in the decade. Of the latter number 62.8 per cent were orange trees; 17 per cent olives; 16.6 per cent lemons; 2.1 per cent figs. Other trees included were guavas, kaki, limes, pineapples, pomelos, etc. The counties of San Bernardino, Los Angeles, Riverside and Orange contained more than four-fifths of the orange trees. The number for the State increased nearly five times in 10 years. Orange and lemon ship ments increased about eight-fold in the decade. San Diego and Los Angeles counties contained more than half the lemon trees of the State, the number being more than 18 times as great as 10 years before. There were 5,648,714 orange; 1,493,113 lemon; 1,530,164 olive trees in the State.
Strawberries, blackberries, raspberries, logan berries and other small fruits are valued at about $2,000,000. Fifty-two of the 57 counties raise grapes. California is the principal wine producer of the Union, yielding more than one half the total product.
Viticulture.— California has over 90,000,000 grape-vines (more than all the rest of the Union), occupying 356,009 acres; representing an investment of $150,000,000. The State shipped in 1916 10,741 carloads, valued at $13, 000,000. It is the only raisin State. In 1916 it shipped (from 22 counties, though Fresno is centre) 128,500 tons of raisins. The seeded raisin industry began in Fresno County, and has grown from 3,500 tons in 1897 to 45,000 tons in 1916.
The best °dry* wines are grown almost ex clusively in the northern half of the State; the best sweet wines exclusively in the southern. The recent (1917) vote in Los Angeles pro hibits the use of beverages above 14 per cent alcohol after 1 April 1918. This is the largest city in the West thus to restrict. It permits the 14 per cent clarets of the North, but in hibits the 21 per cent ports, sherrys and other fortified sweet wines of the South. California
is committed to a policy of °local option,' as regards the liquor problem, but the great ma jority of the smaller cities are (nominally) •bone dry.' On 1 April 1918, the 200 saloons in Los Angeles (600,000 population), closed their doors, being °voted out* by a large city ma jority. It was then the largest city in the Union without liquor license. The effect of the °pro hibitory* movement on the whole grape in dustry and the 100,000 persons directly depend ent upon it can be inferred. The ordinance was voted in November, and became effective only four months later. This was virtual confisca tion of several million dollars in stock, leases, licenses, fixtures, etc. At the same time there were still 1,750 places in San Francisco where °hard drinks' could be secured.
Mining.—As early as 1690, Loyola Casallo mentions seeing placer gold in California; large nuggets were described (by Antonio Alcedo 1786) in the 18th century. Not later than 1841; gold was found on San Francisquito Creek, Ventura County, about 45 miles from Los Angeles, and was °washed* there by Mexicans on a modest scale. On 19 Jan. 1, James W. Marshall, an American from jersey, em ployed by the Swiss pioneer, John Sutter, in building a saw-mill near Coloma, on the north fork of the American, picked up yellow metallic flakes in the mill-race; the news spread in spite of efforts to suppress it, and in a few months the gold rush was on. Up to 1848 the whole United States had produced less than $12,000,000 in gold since the discovery of America; in five ears following, California alone yielded over 258,000,000. The annual gold product of the State, from the discovery to 1859 inclusive, was in million dollars, 5, 10, 45, 75, 85, 65, 6554, 65, 57, 50 and 50. The total gold output from 1848 to 1 Jan. 1918, was $1,673,594,500. It now averages 2154 million per year. This first bonanza in United States history had a profound economic, sociologic and political effect. •Sound money' was as yet unknown in this country; silver and gold together in the whole Union up to 1848 had not reached $25,000,000 in total output; and the instability of the currency prior to the California gold discovery is familiar to students. The Cali fornia gold-find not only precipitated such a shifting of population as had not before been dreamed of on this continent; it not only brought about the admission to the Union of a State distant 2,000 miles from any other State,— California was the first State in the geographic western half of the United States, and sixth west of the Mississippi River,—it furnished the finances for the great civil cleav age nominally most concerned with slavery, and gave the free States a majority in the United States Senate. It is probably not fanciful to hold that this °irrepressible conflict' could not so soon have opened had the nation been so short of bullion and of credit as it was prior to the gold discovery of 1848. Furthermore, in 1859, almost exclusively with California cap ital, labor, enterprise and machinery, the great silver bonanzas of Nevada (just across the Sierra) be the remarkable record of 21 years, in which they produced over $306,000,000 in bullion.