Will.
THE COCOANUT ISLANDS OF THE PACIFIC
Imagine yourself on a great ocean steamship, gliding over the blue water of the Pacific Ocean toward the Samoan Islands. Among the first things that you will see as you near the shores of these islands will be tall, slender, graceful trees, rising without a branch to a height of thirty to eighty feet. At the top is a sort of crown, composed of long, drooping leaves. These beautiful trees lean out over the water and toss their leaves in the strong and steady breeze from the ocean. They seem to nod a friendly greeting to you as you approach, and to wave a loving farewell to you as you sail away. These trees are the cocoanut palms. They grow on all of the tropical islands of the Pacific Ocean, in the West Indies, and along the shores of most warm countries, but never far from the sea.
When the cocoanut falls into the water, it is rocked and tossed by the waves and drifted about by the currents, but it is safe within its shell, for the salt water cannot penetrate this. When it finally comes to rest upon some strange shore, it is ready to give to the world another cocoanut palm, if the climate is like that from which it sailed. In this way nature has helped the trees to become widely distributed.
There are cocoanut plantations as well as wild groves of the trees. When a plantation is to be established, the planter selects the ripest nuts and dries them for several weeks. They are then planted, and by and by a little palm springs from the small end of the nut and the roots from the large end. When the young trees are from six months to two years old, they are transplanted in rows thirty or forty feet apart. They begin to bear nuts in about five years, but they do not yield a full crop for fifteen or twenty years. Do you think that a poor man could afford to go into the business of cocoanut raising?
As you see in the picture, cocoanuts grow in clusters. You notice also that they grow close to the stem instead of at the ends of the branches. They do not all ripen at once, but nuts may be picked at almost any time. A tree will produce from fifty to one hundred nuts each year. If you were to go into an apple, a peach, or a cherry orchard, you could easily pick the ripe fruit. Gathering cocoanuts is quite a different matter, however. Let us observe this shiny-skinned Samoan boy and see how he picks them. He fastens a short piece of rope in the form of a loop to each foot. Letting one of the loops catch on a rough place on the bark of the tree he places the hollow of his foot against it, clasps the trunk with his hands, and raises himself a little. Then the other loop is fastened a little higher up, and he raises himself again. In this way he finally reaches the nuts. With a knife he cuts off the ripe ones, which fall to the ground and are then piled up. They are then placed in baskets which are hung from a pole and carried on the shoulders of two men or are loaded on to donkeys and taken to the shed.
The ripe cocoanut is a valuable article of food just as it is picked from the tree. It contains also a milk which is a nourishing drink. Most of the cocoanut sent to other countries, however, is in a form known as copra.
At the shed the hard shell, which covers the meat, is split open by means of an ax. The meat is removed with a knife and is then spread out on mats to dry. This dried cocoanut is copra.
The inhabitants of these cocoanut islands live in a much more simple style than we do, and the cocoanut tree supplies many of the things that they use daily.
Let us examine the home of a native Samoan. The frame and posts of the house are made of the slender trunks of the cocoanut palm, while the roof is covered with its leaves instead of with shingles. The cups, bowls, dippers, and many other household utensils are made of the shells. If a whole shell is wanted, the "eyes" are pushed in, the milk is used, and ants are allowed to eat the meat. These make excellent water bottles. Baskets, curtains, and twine, are made from the fiber of the leaves, and the bark is used for fuel.
From the copra an oil is pressed which is used in the manufacture of soap. It makes a perfectly white soap that will float on the water. It is also used to furnish light, and the people rub it on their bodies to prevent sunburn. The sap of the tree is made into sugar, vinegar, and a liquor.
While in our country the cocoanut is important chiefly to bakers and confectioners, in these far-away islands it is the most useful of plants, and one of the chief articles of food. Would you not like to visit the cocoanut islands and learn more of their interesting people?
A BUNCH OF BANANAS
Every day, as you walk along the streets you see great bunches of bananas hanging in front of fruit and grocery stores. You find them at the corner fruit stand, and peddlers carry them from house to house.
Although bananas are so common now and so cheap that all can afford to eat them, this was not so when your grandparents were children. In those days the fruit was regarded as quite a luxury, for there were few people engaged in carrying it from its tropical home to the cities of our country. Now many small but swift ships, called "fruiters," carry on this business. They get their cargoes of fruit in the West Indies or Central America, and within a week after sailing they are unloading at New Orleans, Baltimore, New York, or Boston. If the number of bananas which reach our country each year were equally distributed, each person would receive twenty-five.
Let us get aboard that wonderful train upon which all may travel free of cost, which runs equally well upon land and water. We step off right in the center of a banana plantation on the island of Jamaica.
Yes, these are banana trees all about you. See how long and broad the leaves are and how gracefully they droop! Some of them are ten or fifteen feet long; almost as long as the trees are tall. The trees, you see, are simply stalks from which the leaves unroll. Here you can see some just starting out. They are rolls of bright green, pointing upward, each starting from the center of the stalk. No, the leaves were not torn in that way by the pickers. The wind sometimes whips them into ribbons, for they are very tender.
These stalks growing from the base of the main stem are called "suckers" here; in Costa Rica they are called "bits." You remember that there are no seeds in bananas. It is these "suckers" that are planted when a farmer wants to start a plantation. They are set out when two or three feet high and within a year they bear fruit. What did I tell you about the length of time required for the cocoanut to bear?
It is but four years since the trees in this plantation were single "suckers," standing about fifteen feet apart. Now there are several stalks grouped about each parent plant, and the beautiful leaves, touching overhead, form shaded aisles of green.
Of course a great number of "suckers" are not allowed to grow together. Keeping these cut down is called "cleaning the plantation."
Now let us examine the fruit on this tree beside us. You see that the great cluster or bunch is made up of smaller bunches. These are called "hands," and each banana is spoken of as a "finger." Let us count the "hands" in this bunch. This is an unusually large one, for it contains thirteen. Nine "hands" make a full bunch. As you see, there are from ten to twenty "fingers" in a "hand." Buyers will seldom take bunches of less than six "hands."
Here come the fruit cutters to help get a cargo for the "fruiter" we saw at anchor.
Yes, the bananas are green, I know, and they are always green when gathered. They will ripen in the storehouses when they reach the United States.
No, it is not a waste to cut down the stalks, for they die after bearing their fruit, and the smaller stalks about them will soon yield. Some of these stalks, you see, have but one bunch and some have two or three. How odd the bunches look with the "fingers" all pointing upward!
The banana leaves which the men are wrapping about the bunches are to protect the fruit. It bruises very easily and great quantities are lost on this account. They are not always wrapped, however.
When the fruit reaches the vessel, it is carefully inspected; and if not in just the right condition, it is refused. The bunches which are accepted, are taken into the hold of the ship and packed closely together. The planter receives for these from ten to thirty-five cents a bunch. Just think of buying eight or nine dozen of bananas for ten cents!
The men will not stop work until the ship is loaded. It may take twenty-four hours, and it may take twice that long, for a "fruiter" will carry from fifteen to twenty thousand bunches of fruit.
In some parts of Central America, where there are no harbors, the planters float the fruit down the streams in canoes. The vessels anchor at some distance from the shore, and the bananas are taken out in boats called dories. They are hoisted up to the deck of the ship by means of pulleys, and then packed in the hold. The thousands of bunches which are bruised in handling are thrown into the sea.
While the northern ports get most of their supply of bananas from the West Indies, the Pacific coast states are supplied from Central America. The "fruiters" unload at New Orleans into trains, which carry the fruit to Los Angeles, San Francisco, and other places. Banana trains also run from New Orleans to St. Louis, Chicago, and other parts of the country.
The fruit ships have great pipes or ventilators, which carry the cool, fresh air from the sea down into the hold. Sometimes when they reach port it is so cold that the bananas cannot be taken out for a few days. Wagons are loaded with the fruit at the wharves, and it is taken to warehouses where it gradually turns yellow. I am sure you have seen loads of the green fruit on the streets.
When the wholesale merchant sells the fruit, he often incloses each bunch in the rough material of which gunny sacks are made, and then puts a light, circular frame, made of strips of wood, over it. This, you see, protects the bananas. The grocer or fruit man takes hold of the frame without danger of mashing the fruit, lifts the bunch, and hangs it upon a hook. The frame and sacking are then removed.
Bananas grow in the tropical parts of Asia and Africa and on many of the islands of the Pacific Ocean. They are also raised in Florida, and they ripen in sheltered places in Southern California.
You have seen both yellow and red bananas. The red ones usually bring the higher price, but they do not keep well and are not so extensively raised as the yellow ones.
The banana is an important article of food. It is much more nourishing than potatoes or even good, white bread. A flour or meal can be made from the fruit by drying it and then grinding.
HOW DATES GROW
Three thousand years before the shepherds followed the star to the manger at Bethlehem, the beautiful date palm was cultivated beside the banks of the Euphrates and the Nile rivers. The date was the bread of the people who lived in these fertile valleys, and it is an important article of food in northern Africa, Arabia, and Persia to-day.
Look at a map of northern Africa, and you will see that the great Sahara covers a large part of it. Here and there across the drifting sands wind caravan routes, traveled by camels ridden by strangely dressed men. These routes lead to beautiful garden spots called oases. Here are wells and springs, with little streams flowing in the shade of fig, date palm, and other trees. The people who dwell within these groves beside the cooling waters look out upon the desert as the inhabitants of an island might look upon the boundless sea. Find some of these oases and learn why they are fertile. The people who live in these oases depend upon dates for their living. The dreary journey from the coast to the interior is made to procure quantities of this fruit, which are wanted by the outside world.
If you were to make a journey in a desert country, you would find that you could not carry such articles of food as you would have if you remained at home. The sunshine beats down fiercely, the springs and wells are far apart, and the patient animals must not be overloaded. The chief article of food carried is the date. A mass is packed together until it is so hard that pieces are chopped off with a hatchet when they are wanted.
Like the cocoanut palm, the date palm rises to a great height, sometimes fifty or sixty feet, without branches. It ends in a crown of beautiful feathery leaves which droop downward. These leaves may be ten or fifteen feet long. Many of them stand edgewise. Unlike most trees, the trunk does not steadily increase in size, and you can tell nothing as to the age of the tree by its diameter.
In its wild state many shoots spring from the base of the tree. These may grow as high as the parent stalk, so that in time a jungle or thicket is formed.
The flowers, which are clear white, grow in clusters. There are from six to twenty of these clusters on a tree, each of which produces a bunch of dates. The female tree bears the fruit. The blossoms are pollinated both by the wind and by man.
There are from ten to fifteen pounds of dates in a bunch. A tree will average from one hundred to two hundred pounds each year, although trees have been known to yield six hundred pounds. The trees yield when from four to eight years old, and continue to bear for a century.
The dates, green at first, later in the year a yellowish brown, are, when ripe, amber or black in color.
The trees require a very dry, hot climate, but moist soil. Long, long ago, this saying was common among the Arabs, "The date palm, the queen of trees, must have her feet in running water and her head in the burning sky."
Although there are lovely date palm trees on the grounds of many California homes, few of them bear fruit. The temperature must average from eighty to ninety degrees for a considerable time in the summer, in order to mature it. What is the average summer temperature in your locality?
If an ordinary tree is frost-bitten, it recovers and soon puts out a new growth; but if the crown of the date palm be frozen, the tree dies.
When the Moors went to Spain, in the eleventh century, they introduced this valuable tree which the mission fathers several hundred years later brought to Mexico and to Southern California.
How would you like to try to climb a date palm tree? Although they look so smooth and are without branches, the natives of the desert climb them without any help whatever. The trunk is always somewhat rough, and this makes it possible to ascend them.
Not all of the dates in a bunch ripen at once, so they are usually picked by hand and only the ripe ones selected. Sometimes, however, the bunches are cut off. Some dates contain so much sap that the bunches must be hung up to allow it to drain off before they can be shipped. This sap is called date honey, and is saved. They are sent to the coast towns in bags or boxes called frails. Where dates are to be sold in small quantities, they are repacked in the small boxes such as you have seen.
You know that dates are very sweet, and it is no wonder that they are, for they contain from fifty-five to sixty per cent of sugar.
The trees are often tapped, and the sap which flows out is made into sugar. Vinegar and a liquor called arrack are also made from it. The leaves of the tree are made into bags and mats; from the stones a drink is made which takes the place of coffee. From the leafstalks baskets are made, while the trunk furnishes material for houses and for fences.
If the dates could speak, they could tell us many wonderful stories of the far East, of the river boats on the Nile, of the drifting sands which come so close to the river's banks, of the caravans creeping over the desert toward the green oases and then fading out of sight, bearing loads of this food to the countries where it is not produced.
THE ORANGE GROVES OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
Dear Friend Will: I was very glad to receive your letter, and much surprised to know that you are living on a farm. I am glad that you described the raising of cranberries, for I did not know much about it before. When I told my teacher about getting the letter, she asked me to read it in the geography class and to show the pictures. I asked our grocery-man where he gets his cranberries, and found that some of them came from Wareham.
You are having cold weather now, I know. Is the skating good? I have not seen ice as thick as window glass since we came to California, except that delivered by the iceman. Just now there is a beautiful covering of snow on the mountains a few miles north and east of town. Just think of picking roses and callas with snow in plain sight! The snow never remains more than a day or two on these mountains.
Soon after we came to Pasadena, father bought an orange grove of twenty-five acres. We are picking the fruit now. People began to pick oranges several weeks ago, and the work will continue all winter.
Orange trees are planted about twenty feet apart, but the groves do not look as apple orchards do in the East, for no grass is allowed to grow in them.
The best orange section is east of here, near Redlands and Riverside, but some good fruit is raised near Pasadena also.
Father keeps our trees pruned down rather low, so that it is easier to pick the oranges than it would be if they were allowed to grow very tall.
Orange raising is like cranberry growing in one way—the land must be irrigated in each case. Here the water is piped from the mountain streams and from tunnels. We form basins about ten feet square around each tree and fill them with water. Most of our irrigating is done during the summer, as the winter is our rainy season. You would not call it a very rainy time. Our average is about twenty inches for the whole year.
The trees in our grove have been set out about six years, and they are bearing nicely now. Orange trees begin to bear when they are four years old; so, you see, we have to wait a little longer for a crop than you do for a crop of cranberries. It costs a good deal to start an orange grove. Trees cost from one dollar to one and one-half dollars each at the nurseries. A few years ago they sold for twenty cents each.
I wish that you could see the trees when they are in full blossom, and also when they are loaded with the golden fruit. I am going to put some orange blossoms into the envelope, but I am afraid they will not reach you in very good condition. They are very fragrant, and you can smell their perfume some distance from a tree in blossom.
To-day we picked about two hundred and fifty boxes of oranges. We always speak of picking them, although they are not picked, but cut. You see, if they were picked off, the part where the stem pulled off would soon begin to decay.
We take a wagon load of fruit boxes, and, while father drives slowly between the rows of trees, I throw them off.
Each picker carries a sack slung over one shoulder, and as fast as he cuts off an orange, he drops it into the sack. The sacks are emptied into the boxes, and these are loaded on to the wagon. Father pays five cents a box for picking, and a good picker will gather about forty boxes in a day.
We sell most of our oranges to fruit companies. These companies pack and ship the fruit. At the packing houses the oranges are placed in tubs of water and scrubbed with small brushes. Many women, girls, and boys work at this. The washing is to take off dirt, and also scale.
After the oranges are washed, they are placed in a sort of trough which is highest at the end near the tub. They roll down this trough to the grader. This is a machine so arranged that the oranges pass through different openings according to their size, and come out sorted.
In the warehouse close by they are wrapped and packed. Chinamen often do this work. Each orange is wrapped in a separate piece of paper, which has the brand of the company stamped upon it. It is then packed firmly in a box. A certain number of oranges of each grade fill a box, ninety-six of the largest grade, and about two hundred of the smallest. Those which are too small, as well as the imperfect oranges, are rejected. These are called culls. Sometimes these are sold for a low price, and sometimes they are thrown away by wagon loads.
After the boxes are filled, they are placed in special fruit cars and hurried to St. Louis, Chicago, New York, Boston, and other cities.
Yes, the Weather Bureau is of great help to fruit growers. Of course we have very little winter here, but oranges will not endure much cold. The mercury falls below the freezing point but a few times each season. On New Year's Day the temperature here was fifty-eight degrees. I looked up the Boston temperature for the same day and found that it was only four degrees above zero. When the Bureau predicts a sharp freeze, the farmers build small fires in their orchards, or turn on a good deal of water. The fires are built in small wire baskets. They make a smudge instead of a flame. The people in the raisin districts watch the weather reports pretty closely, for rain injures the drying grapes.
Growers have to spray or fumigate the trees to destroy the scale that I spoke of which is a great enemy of the orange, to kill the insects, and to wash off dirt. This is sometimes done by putting a great piece of canvas over the tree, forming a sort of tent which prevents the fumes from escaping. It was found that the ladybugs would eat the scale and so they were brought into California from the East. They do a great deal of good, but still we have to spray the trees.
Orange trees are raised from the seed, and the trees produced in this way are called seedlings. By budding, a fruit much better than the oranges grown on the seedling tree has been produced. There were five acres of seedlings in our grove, and father budded the trees. He cut off the limbs rather close to the trunk of the tree. Then he slipped buds from navel trees into cuts made through the bark in the end of each limb left on the tree. He then wound cord tightly about the limb and put on some wax. After a time a new growth started out where these buds were placed. These new branches will bear much improved fruit.
We have a very fine variety of oranges called Washington Navels. Trees of this variety were obtained by our government from Brazil. Two of these were brought to Riverside, a town about seventy-five miles east of Pasadena, and planted on a ranch belonging to a Mr. Tibbits. They did well, and all of the trees of this variety in Southern California were obtained from these two through budding. These trees are still living.
California and Florida are the two important orange-growing states of our country. Father says the industry is much older in Florida than in our state. Florida growers can ship their fruit to market much cheaper than we can. It costs us ninety cents for each box.
Mexico, the West Indies, Italy, southern France, and Spain are also orange producers. These countries have the advantage of cheap labor, father says.
I wish that you could visit us. We would have fine times, I am sure.
The next time I write I will tell you about some of the other fruits raised in California.
Frank.
A VISIT TO A VINEYARD
Dear friend Will: Last week father went to Fresno, which is about three hundred miles northwest of here, in the San Joaquin valley. He took me with him, and we visited some of the great vineyards and raisin-packing establishments near and in that city.
Raisins are simply dried grapes. Although there are many countries where grapes grow, there are few where raisins are made. Dew, fog, and rain injure the fruit, so that the San Joaquin valley, with its dry, hot atmosphere, is well adapted to this industry.
There are a great many different kinds of grapes but only the green variety is used in making raisins. The raisin grapes are called muscats. If the grapes are left on the vines long enough, they become raisins. I have picked some pretty good raisins from the vines. Of course by being spread out, they dry quicker and more evenly.
The sugar that you find on and in the raisins is not put there by the people who dry the grapes. It comes from the juice of the grape.
Grapevines grow from both roots and cuttings. Of course cuttings are the cheaper. Often they may be had for the asking. Many think that it is better to set out rooted vines than cuttings.
They are planted in rows from six feet apart to twelve or fifteen feet. During the first year the young vines will grow several feet. In the fall, when the flow of the sap has been checked by frost, the vines are pruned. A vineyard in California looks quite different from one in the East. During the winter it is simply so many rows of stumps several inches in thickness and one or two feet high. During the summer the branches grow from these stumps and produce their beautiful clusters of grapes, only to be cut off in the fall or winter.
The trimmings are generally burned in the vineyard at the same time that they are cut off. A sort of furnace made of sheet iron is fastened between two wheels and drawn by horses up and down between the rows. A man pitches the cuttings into it, and they burn as it moves along.
In the early summer men go through the vineyards sprinkling a coating of sulphur on the vines. This is to prevent mildew, which damages the fruit very much.
During the last half of August and September the grapes are picked. Sometimes the harvest continues into October. Most of the grapes had been gathered when we visited the vineyards.
When the juice of the grapes is one fourth sugar, they are ready to pick. The grower generally tells the condition by the taste and color of the fruit, although there are instruments for determining the amount of sugar.
Like oranges, grapes are cut from the vines and not picked. We saw great companies of Chinamen going through the vineyards cutting off the beautiful clusters. These they placed on shallow, wooden trays to dry. In a week or two, when the upper side of the clusters is pretty well dried, the grapes are turned. We saw the workmen place an empty tray, upside down, over the filled one. Then, holding the two together, they turned them over, and the grapes dropped into the tray that had been placed on top.
During this drying time the people watch the reports of the Weather Bureau. In some places flags are displayed when rain is expected. As a rule the grape season is over before the rains begin.
When the grapes are taken from the trays, they are placed in boxes holding about one hundred pounds each. These are called sweat boxes. Here the driest grapes absorb some of the moisture from the others, and the mass becomes more uniform.
After the drying process has been finished, the stems are rather brittle. To make them softer and easier to handle, the grapes are next placed in a cool room and left there for a time.
After visiting some of the vineyards, we drove to one of the great packing establishments in Fresno. These packing houses are nearly always in the cities and towns, because there help can be easily obtained. The packing house that we visited employs four hundred people, mostly girls and women.
The raisins are first placed on wooden or metal frames the size of a raisin box. These are called forms, and the packers are paid according to the number of forms filled. When these are filled, the raisins are carefully transferred to the boxes.
A box of raisins weighs twenty pounds, but there are half boxes and quarter boxes put up also. A paper is placed on the bottom of each box, and over the raisins another is placed. On top of this there is a fancy paper on which the name of the packer is stamped.
In most establishments there are three grades of raisins, Imperial Clusters, London Layers, and the loose and imperfect stems.
Sometimes a second crop of grapes is gathered a little later in the fall. Of course these do not dry so well because the days are shorter, it is cooler, and rains sometimes occur. On this account they are dipped in lye and then rinsed in water. The lye cracks the skin, and so the juice evaporates more quickly. These are called Valencia raisins. There is not a very good market for these, so that people do not dip them so commonly now as they used to.
We saw the machine where the raisins are stemmed. They pass from a hopper into a space between two woven-wire cylinders. The inner one revolves within the other. In this way the raisins are broken from the stems. They are then run through a fanning mill which cleans them, and they are finally graded by passing through screens having openings of different sizes.
Most of the seedless raisins are made from seedless grapes, but there are machines for removing the seeds from the grapes which contain them.
The superintendent of the packing house said that nearly all of the raisins that we import come from Spain, and that they are exported chiefly from the city of Malaga.
The purple and other wine grapes are taken to the wineries and sold by the ton, to be made into wine.
There are many other things that I should like to write about, but my letter is a pretty long one now, so I will close.
Frank.
NUTTING
Have you ever gone into the woods on a beautiful autumn day? The bright, warm sunshine floods the earth where the trees are far apart and sifts down through the branches. All nature seems to invite you to lie down under a tree and dream. It was on such a day that Rip Van Winkle fell into his long sleep.
How pretty the trees look in their fall suits of yellow, crimson, red, and brown! What a rustling is made as your feet tread the carpet of leaves!
The breezes pass among the branches and whisper a message to the bright-colored leaves. They understand and obey. Singly, in groups, and in showers, they silently float downward. By night and by day they fall, but soon this carpet will be changed for one of white.
Listen! The leaves are not the only things that are falling. You can hear the thump, thump of nuts as they drop from their lofty perches in the walnut and hickory-nut trees.
Sit down quietly on that log and you will soon see the busy nut gatherers. With their tails curled over their backs, they race up and down the trees, or spring from branch to branch, carrying their precious burdens to their homes in the hollows of trunk or limb. Now one sits up straight, holding a nut between his paws, and turning it slowly as he cracks and eats it. If he sees you, he whisks out of sight, or scolds you from a safe place far above the ground.
When the winter winds are whistling through the leafless trees, and snows are drifting over the ground, these little nut gatherers feast to their hearts' content.
The squirrels do not gather all of the nuts. Children and grown people enjoy nutting. When there are not enough nuts on the ground, the men and boys climb the trees to shake them off. Then everybody hunts among the leaves for the treasures.
Some of the most important nuts are walnuts, hickory nuts, hazelnuts, almonds, chestnuts, Brazil nuts, pecans, and peanuts.
Many of the hickory nuts fall out of their coverings bright and clean. Walnuts generally have to be shucked, and the juice stains the hands almost black.
As hazelnuts grow on bushes, they can be easily picked. They usually drop out of their burs after there have been a few frosts.
Many nuts are gathered in the woods, but in some places the trees are cultivated just as fruit trees are.
We usually eat nuts between meals, or as a dessert. They are not simply dainties, but are very valuable articles of food. In some countries the poor people depend upon them for food.
In almost any city of our country are to be found the nuts that I have mentioned, with perhaps several other kinds. These have come from different states, some from Canada, some from Brazil, and some from Spain.
I am sure you will enjoy gathering nuts of different kinds, so let us set out on a nutting expedition.
A WALNUT VACATION
How would you like to have your school close for two weeks, so that you could gather walnuts? Every year many of the boys and girls of Southern California are given a vacation just for this purpose. It is called the "walnut vacation," and occurs in the month of October.
These children do not take their baskets and go off to the woods where they can romp and play, watch the squirrels, and gather beautiful autumn leaves. They gather nuts from the trees which their parents own, for in Southern California there are many walnut ranches or groves. You see the vacation means a vacation for work instead of for play.
Walnut trees are set out in rows just as apple trees are, but their roots and branches extend to such a distance from the trunks that they need to be about twice as far apart.
The walnut harvest, which begins about the first of October, is a busy time. Men, women, boys, and girls may be seen in the groves, shaking the nuts from the trees, picking them up, and putting them into sacks.
The men shake the trees, and there is a shower of nuts to the earth. Do not go under the branches now unless you want to be pelted. A single tree has been known to yield three hundred pounds of nuts in a season.
When the trees have been given a good shaking, there are still some nuts clinging to the branches. These are obtained by shaking the limbs separately, by means of long poles, to the ends of which wire hooks are fastened. As all of the nuts do not ripen at the same time, the trees are sometimes gone over two or three times.
Now the boys, girls, and women go to work filling pails and baskets and emptying them into sacks, for they can do this work as well as men.
Usually the nuts drop out of their covering or shuck when they strike the ground; but if they do not, the shuck must be removed. Sometimes the covering is cut off. If you handle the nuts with your bare hands, they will be stained almost black, and you will have to let the color wear off.
The days are bright and warm, and this sort of nutting becomes rather tiresome before sundown. The work must be done and the vacation is not a very long one, so each does his part cheerfully.
When the nuts have been gathered, they are taken to the shed or place where they are to be washed. Here they are poured into a large wire cylinder which revolves in a tank filled with water. The machine is turned by a horse walking round and round, and it both washes and grades the nuts. The smaller ones pass through the meshes in the wire and are called second grade. The larger ones are known as first grade.