RAISINS

grapes of high sugar content prepared by drying. California is the greatest raisin-producing country in the world. Its crop has grown from only 120,000 pounds in 1875 to the present total in exce of 300,000,000 pounds. Fresno County alone exceeds the entire output of Spain, second on the producing list. California raisins are all of grapes of the vinifera species (see Grarz) and chiefly of the California White Muscat and Thompson Seedle varieties. The California White Muscat is a mixture of the White Muscat of Alexandria and the Gordo Blanco, both imported in the early days and now varietally indistinguishable. When ripe, it is a large, white-bloomed, amber-flushed, yellowish-green, smooth, tender, thin-skinned grape with firm, rich, fruity, moderately juicy, finely flavored flesh. It averages five-eighths of an inch in diameter by one inch in length, and is borne in long, loose, straggling clusters. It is distinctly a raisin grape and is not shipped fresh to any considerable extent because of its tenderne . The clusters are cut from the vines when thoroughly ripe, and placed to dry on wooden trays set between the vine-rows. When they have wilted sufficiently, an empty tray is placed over the full tray and by a quick movement their positions are reversed, so that when the top tray is taken off, the ‘‘raw’’ under-sides of the clusters are exposed to the sun. Later, the trays are stacked in order to finish the curing more slowly. Next, the fruit goes into boxes which hold about 150 pounds each for the sweating which equalizes the moisture of the fruit. After the sweating comes the separation into two cla es—‘‘cluster’’ and ‘‘loose.”’ The large bunehes are sorted out by hand as ‘‘cluster’’ (or ‘‘bunch’’) raisins. The balance are marketed as loose raisins—stemmed, graded for size, sterilized, and seeded. The highest quality of cluster raisins is designated ‘‘six crown,’’ the next is ‘five crown,’’ ete. The other important California raisin—the Thompson Seedle (or Oval Kishmish, or Sultan in a) — grows in very large, conical bunches of oval, yellow berries, small to under-medium in size. They are low in acidity and entirely seedle . The smaller ‘‘Sultava,’’ or Round Kishmish, is also grown in limited quantities. It generally shows a higher acid content than the Thompson Seedle , and occasionally develops seeds.: Of Imported Raisins the principal types are the Spanish Malagas (or Muscatels) and the Smyrna Sultanas. Choice cluster Malagas are exceptionally large, handsome, and delicious fruits. Smyrna Sultanas, or Smyrna Sultana raisins, are seedle and, in the best grades, of a pale yellow, transparent tint and very fine flavor. They are commonly elongated in shape Corinthian raisins is a separate grade of sultanas, usually Jarger and a little darker than the Smyrnas. In Syria and other parts of the Old World, quantities of grape bunches are wrapped and tied in vine-leaves and thus laid on straw mats to dry in the sun, the dried, contracted leaf-wrappings protecting them in all future handlings up to their po e ion by the consumer.