Читать книгу The Raisin Industry - Gustavus A. Eisen - Страница 39

—Although the raisin industry had long existed in the province of Valencia, it was only in late years that it assumed an importance. They were already known as Duracinae by the Romans. Re-introduced or improved by the Arabs or Moors, it soon became a prominent industry, and the export of raisins to England was already of some consequence in the time of William and Mary. In the year 1638, Lewis Roberts, in his merchant map of commerce, informs us that Denia raisins cost eighteen rials or three shillings per hundred weight. In 1664, Gandia raisins were quite famous, and were known as Pasas. At the end of the last century, the raisins from Denia and Liria reached forty thousand quintals, or two thousand tons, distributed as follows: Spain, six thousand; France, six thousand; England, twenty-eight thousand,—equal to one million, four hundred and thirty thousand boxes, forty thousand quintals, or two thousand tons. In 1862, the raisin export from Valencia had dwindled down to seven thousand tons. In 1876, it had again risen to nineteen thousand tons, and in 1883 to forty thousand tons. Of these, nine hundred and seventy-nine thousand boxes were exported to the United States, one million, three hundred and eighty-five thousand were sent to England, and four hundred and thirty-six thousand found their way to other parts of Europe and Spain. In 1888, the yield was two million, three hundred and sixteen thousand boxes of twenty-eight pounds each, equal to thirty-two thousand, four hundred and twenty-four tons. If packed in twenty-pound boxes, this crop would have equaled three million, two hundred and forty thousand, four hundred boxes, or four times as much as California produced at the same time. The crop of 1889 is calculated to have reached two million, eight hundred thousand boxes of twenty-eight pounds each.

When we remember that this class of raisins is as yet hardly produced in California, and that the nine hundred and seventy-nine thousand boxes or more imported could and should be supplied by us, it would seem that our fears of overproduction will not immediately be realized. The tendency of the raisin market is now to supplant these Valencia dipped raisins with California undipped or sun-dried raisins, the California Sultanas being considered superior for the same purpose that Valencias were formerly used.