passed to the pressing machine,
where four of them are deftly transferred to a twenty pound box. The
two highest grades of raisins are the Dehesa and the London layers. It
has always been the ambition of California's raisin makers to produce
the Dehesa brand. They know that their best raisins are equal in size
and quality to the best Spanish raisins, but heretofore they have
found the cost of preparing the top layer in the Spanish style very
costly, as the raisins had to be flattened out (or thumbed, as it is
technically called) by hand. In Spain, where women work for 20 cents a
day, this hand labor cuts no figure in the cost of production, but
here, with the cheapest labor at $1.50 a day, it has proved a bar to
competition. American ingenuity, however, is likely to overcome this
handicap of high wages. T.C. White, an old raisin grower, has invented
a packing plate of metal, with depressions at regular intervals just
the size of a big raisin. This plate is put at the bottom of the
preliminary packing box, and when the work of packing is complete the
box is reversed and the top layer, pressed into the depressions of the
plate, bears every mark of the most careful hand manipulation. Mr.
Butler used this plate for the first time this season, and found it a
success, and there is no question of its general adoption. Every year
sees more attention paid to the careful grading of raisins, as upon
this depends much of their marketable value. The large packing houses
have done good work in enforcing this rule, and the chief sinners who
still indulge in careless packing are small growers with poor
facilities. Probably the next few years will see a great increase in
the number and size of the packing houses which will prepare and
market most of Fresno's raisin crop. The growers also will avail
themselves of the co-operative plan, for which the colony system
offers peculiar advantages.

Geometrical progression is the only thing which equals the increase of
Fresno's raisin product. Eighteen years ago it was less than 3,000
boxes. Last year it amounted to 1,050,000 boxes, while this year the
product cannot fall below 1,250,000 boxes. New vineyards are coming
into bearing every year, and this season has seen a larger planting of
new vineyards than ever before. This was due mainly to the stimulus
and encouragement of the McKinley bill, which was worth an
incalculable sum to those who are developing the raisin industry in
California. B