fruits may be grown here, yet this is pre-eminently
the home of the raisin industry, and it is the raisin which in a
single decade has converted 50,000 acres of wheat fields into
vineyards. No other crop in California promises such speedy returns or
such large profits as the raisin grape, and as the work on the
vineyards is not heavy, the result has been a remarkable growth of the
infant industry. It is estimated that in this county, which contains
5,000,000 acres and is nearly as large as Massachusetts, there are
400,000 acres that may be irrigated and are specially adapted to the
grape. As the present crop on about 25,000 acres in full bearing is
valued at $6,000,000, some idea may be formed of the revenue that will
come to the Fresno vineyardists when all this choice valley land is
planted and in full bearing. And what makes the prospect of permanent
prosperity surer is the fact that nine out of ten new settlers are
content with twenty-acre tracts, as one of these is all which a man
can well care for, while the income from this little vineyard will
average $4,000 above all expenses, a larger income than is enjoyed by
three-quarters of the professional men throughout the country.

The raisin industry in California is very young. To be sure, dried
grapes have been known since the time of the Mission Fathers, but the
dried mission grape is not a raisin. The men who thirty years ago sent
over to Europe for the choicest varieties of wine grapes imported
among other cuttings the Muscatel, the Muscat of Alexandria, and the
Feher Zagos; the three finest raisin grapes of Spain. But the raisin,
like the fig, requires skillful treatment, and for years the
California grower made no headway. He read all that had been written
on the curing of the raisin; several enterprising men went to Spain to
study the subject at first hand; but despite all this no progress was
made. Finally several of the pioneer raisin men of Fresno cut loose
from all precedent, dried their grapes in the simple and natural
manner and made a success of it. From that time, not over ten years
ago, the growth of the industry has eclipsed that of every other
branch of horticulture in the State, and the total value of the
product promises soon to exceed the value of the orange crop or the
yield of wine and brandy.

It required a good deal of nerve for the pioneers of Fresno County to
spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in bringing water upon what the
old sett