Fresno County, for ten miles about Fresno, furnishes the best example of the enormous increase in values which follows the conversion of wheat fields and grazing land into vineyards and orchards. Not even Riverside can compare with it in the rapid evolution of a great source of wealth which ten years ago was almost unknown. What has transformed Fresno from a shambling, dirty resort of cowboys and wheat ranchers into one of the prettiest cities in California is the raisin grape. Though nearly all 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 settlers regarded as a desert, fit only to grow wheat in a very wet season. In other parts of the State the Mission Fathers had dug ditches and built aqueducts, so that the settlers who came after them found a well devised water system, which they merely followed. But in Fresno no one had ever tried to grow crops by irrigation. When Fremont came through there from the mountains he found many wild cattle feeding on the rank grass that grew as high as the head of a man on horseback. The herds of the native Californians were almost equally wild. The country was one vast plain which in summer glowed under a sun that was tropical in its intensity. As late as 1860 one could travel for a day without seeing a house or any sign of habitation. The country was owned by great cattle growers, who seldom rode over their immense ranches, except at the time of the annual "round-up" of stock. About thirty years ago a number of large wheat growers secured big tracts of land around Fresno. At their head was Isaac Friedlander, known as the wheat king of the Pacific Coast. Friedlander would have transformed this country had not financial ruin overcome him.

His place was taken by others, like Chapman, Easterby, Eisen and Hughes - men who believed in fruit growing and who had the courage to carry on their operations in the face of repeated failures.

The great development of Fresno has been due entirely to the colony system, which has also built up most of the flourishing cities of Southern California. In 1874 the first Fresno colony was started by W.S. Chapman. He cut up six sections of land into 20-acre tracts, and brought water from King's River. The colonists represented all classes of people, and though they made many disastrous experiments, with poor varieties of grapes and fruit, still there is no instance of failure recorded, and all who have held on to their land are now in comfortable circumstances. Some of the settlers in this colony were San Francisco school teachers. They obtained their 20-acre tracts for $400, and many of them retired on their little vineyards at the end of five or six years. One lady, named Miss Austen, had the foresight to plant all her property in the best raisin grapes, and for many years drew a larger annual revenue from the property than the whole place cost her. The central colony now has an old established look. The broad avenues are lined with enormous trees; many of the houses are exceedingly beautiful country villas.

What a transformation has been wrought here may be appreciated when it is said that 150 families now produce $400,000 a year on the same land which twenty years ago supported but one family, which had a return of only $35,000 from wheat. The history of this one colony of six sections of old wheat land is the key to Fresno's prosperity. It proves better than columns of argument, or facts or figures, the immense return that careful, patient cultivation may command in this home of the grape. Near this colony are a half-dozen others which were established on the same general plan. The most noteworthy is the Malaga colony, founded by G.G. Briggs, to whom belongs the credit of introducing the raisin grape into Fresno.