en fruit. About Christmas-time, when oranges ripen, both
blossoms and fruit may be picked from the same tree. Los Angeles and
Orange County grow most oranges, but San Diego is first in lemon
culture. Half a million trees in that county show the bright yellow
fruit and fragrant blossoms every month in the year. The other
southern counties also raise lemons by the car-load to send east, or
for your lemonade and lemon pies at home.

[Illustration: AN ORANGE TREE WITH FRUIT AND BLOSSOMS.]

[Illustration: PALMS OVER 100 YEARS OLD AT LOS ANGLES.]

There, too, the olive grows well, that little plum-shaped fruit you
usually see as a green, salt pickle on the table. The Mission Fathers
brought this tree first from Spain, where the poor people live upon
black bread and olives. Olives are picked while green and put in
a strong brine of salt and water to preserve them for eating. Dark
purple ripe olives are also very good prepared the same way. Did you
know that olive-oil is pressed out of ripe olives? The best oil comes
from the first crushing, and the pulp is afterwards heated, when a
second quality of oil is obtained. Olive trees grow very slowly, and
do not fruit for seven years after they are planted. But they live a
hundred years, and bear more olives every season.

The black or purple fig which grew in the old Mission gardens bears
fruit everywhere in the state. Either fresh and ripe, or pressed flat
and dried, it is delicious and healthful. White figs like those from
abroad have been raised the last few years, and it is hoped in time to
produce Smyrna figs equal to the imported.

While peach orchards blossom and bear fruit six months of the year in
the south, most of this pretty pink-cheeked fruit grows in the great
valleys, or along the Sacramento River. Pears also show their snowy
blossoms and yellow fruit in the valleys and farther north. The
Bartlett pear is sent to all the Eastern states in cold storage cars
kept cool by ice, and also to Europe.

The finest apricots are those of that wonderful southern country,
miles and miles of orchards lying round Fresno especially. Yet the
valleys and foot-hills produce plenty, and in the old mining counties
very choice fruit ripens. Apples like the high mountain valleys, where
they get a touch of frost in winter, though there is a cool section of
San Diego County where fine ones are raised. Cherries do well in the
middle and valley regions, the earliest coming from Vacaville