The Brownsville Herald from Brownsville, Texas • Page 33

Sunday, Decemb'er 6, 1942 THE.BROWNSVILLE HERALD'S 50TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION- 6-H The History Of The Rio Grande Valley Citrus Test Plantings Now Major Industry By BRAD SMITH 'I 'HE Lower Rio Grande Valley 1 $125,000,000 citrus industry, one of Texas' major agricultural achievements Is coming 21 years of age this season with the crop in history on tha trees and the biggest demand in history on the markets. Beyond that. Valley growers expect too much, but it's a far cry and a long, hard trail from the beginning of an agricultural industry to the day when it stands with Its land, its trees, its buildings and packing plants, Its orchard equipment and all of its other appurtenances- valued' at $125,000,000, Such things are Just not done overnight, and neither are they accomplished with tedious toll and swimming through iweat. The Valley' citrus industry has come of age in its direction. Valley growers after experiencing practically everything in the way of trouble which could possibly come have learned the hard way, and sometimes, it seems, they may not -have learned the hard way, not have learned those hard lessons very well, but the experience gained thus far has certainly, without doubt, provided a firm foundation upon which the industry will continue to grow and prosper.

Best Sca-son Today, the citrus industry of Texas, as stated above, stand's- on the threshold of its greatest season the biggest crop in history and the biggest market demand in history. Valley grow- ers actually "got well" during the 1941-42 and they didn't do so badly In J940-41, but in 1942-43, it appears' that the real payoff will arrive. Internal strife has not been the least of Valley growers' troubles, but it is now- disappearing rather rapidly under the impetus -of profits for all. There are three, major factors in the Tex- ns citrus industry growers, shippers and canners, There is no division within the ranks of the growers, except that some growers take excellent care of their orchards and produce top-quality fruit nnd others give their groves lit-, tic or only casual attention and produce ordinary or poor-quality fruit. The growers are also divided as to marketing, some being members of the two main citrus marketing groups, the cooperative marketing organizations or the so-called independent shippers or "cash buyers." Still other growers have various arrangements for selling their own crops, some shipping bulk to northern markets under private deals with large concerns, some selling it by direct-mall to large numbers of individual consumers throughout the country ft box or two at.

a time and some Joining with other growers in a single locality and marketing jointly in a small or single-unit co-operative. By and large, all growers grow grapefruit, oranges and lemons, and their interests are largely similar. Despite this fact, there is no single organization devoted solely to han- dling growers' problems such as taxes, gasoline and tire-rationing and other problems entering vitally into the production of by the individual. 2 of The shippers, us briefly above, are divided into two classes co-operative marketing organizations and independent shippers. The former group is now represented by more grower-members than ever i before In the Valley's citrus hls- -tory and probably 50 per cent of all Valley growers now are members of the Rio Grande Valley Citrus Fruit Growers' Exchange and its units or the Gardens Citrus Association.

All of groups take citrus produced by their members, harvest, pack and sell it during "pool periods" ranging from one week to one month in length as -rule, deduct costs of all this handling and selling from proceeds of the sales arid distribute the money back to the growers pro-rata, depending upon the amount of fruit each This old picture recalls the beginning 'of the. Valley's great citrus' Industry. Tl shows some of the first citrus ever shipped Trom -the -Val ley boxed and ready to be loadee. This is an old-photo of the-first solid carload of citrus ever shipped from McAllen, the first shipped from the Valley. It was moved In October, 1915, by a pioneer Valley resident who was In the frocerr business at Me Allen at the time.

grower has in the pool," the quality of his fruit and the price at which that grade of fruit was sold during that pool period. The independent shipper, or "cash buys the grower's fruit, usually on the tree in the orchard, for a specified price per ton or per field box, and -pays for the fruit in cash when all the fruit is harvested and Weighed, hence the' term, "cash This shipper then harvests, packs and sells the' fruit a'nd its handling is his privat profit. None- is rebated to th grower. The Canning Industry The third major factor-- anc the newest is the canning and by-products industry. Elgh years ago.

the first sizable use of fresh cull grapefruit for 'making canned grapefruit juice was reported by C. Chrlstensen at Val Verde, who then was operating the first commercial grapefruit- juice canning plant in Texas. Rio Products Co. had previously bpttled smaller quantities of grapefruit juice on com bination comerclal and experimental basis, paving the way for later experiments, out of which the great canned juice industry nJV operating. The canning section of the in dustry has developed by leaps and bounds, and the end, apparently, is riot yet in sight.

Its Srt.i. Carloia vein, mso the pioneer Valley family of Macedonio Vela, to whom the of Spain prantefl Laguna Seca Ranch in northwestern- Hidalgo County before 1800, greatest production year to date was the 1939-40 season. when 6,900,000 boxes (80 pounds pel- box) were put in tin, as compared with the first year of citrus by-products manufacture, 1929-30. when a grand total of 20,000 boxes were used -for all by products purposes. In addition to canned grapefruit 'Juice, canned lemon juice, a fine grade ange and grapefruit Juice and canned lemon juicec, a fine grade- of livestock feed 'is now produced from the fromerly wasted grapefruit rind, left-over from the juice plants.

Excellent; grapefruit and orange wine arfd, brandies have been produced ex-' marmalade base made from grapefruit juice' concentrate has found wide favor in England and dozens of different kinds of jams and are made from citrus. In. the immediate future, the Valley's first, frozen- food plant process grapefruit hearts in operation near Edinburg. At McAllen, peel- In used in the extraction of "Vela "poses beneath two of 1 the 15-year- old orange trees at Lajruna Seen Ranch. The ancient trees yield every year.

Their trunks and root arc still protected by heavy afobe curbs built decades ago to protc ct them pectinate, from which it new product known as nickel pec- tinate has been developed commercially. This product has been found to have especially valuable properties in treating disorders of the human digestive' tract, such as dysentery. killed them back, to the ground, but they grew again. They are a little older Today, -those seven are the pride and Joy of Laguna Seca, They still bear well, their fruit is well-formed and juicy they are well-developed and symmetrical and. apparently are destined to remain lor many a on Laboratory experimentation year.

The variety of the trees has never been determined but it is believed to be a. large type of the Spanish sweet orange. This prove to. rowers have with is being carried continually. Mission, which has.

for years called -itself the. "Home of a i H' Congratulations on your Anniversary A A Fruit And Vegetable Planti at Alamo and Brownsville. Packing and Shipping: "Better'n Gold" "Good As Gold" "Alamo" "Tex Gold" "Miss Texas" "Tropic Sweel" and "Full-O-life" Brands of. Oranges and Grapefruit. MAIX OFFICE: ALAMO, TEXAS -has inp're-' thah H' a passingly, just claim to that ti- tie.

There are more cictrus trees in the Mission district than- in any other Valley community. The first orchards were planted nurtured ar.d developed jn and around Tile first commercial orchard 'of. 30Q acres was planted by JohrTH. Shary at Sharyiancl near and still heavily, its history; the true story of commercial citrus production in the Valey. "McAllen slipped into the picture by shipping the first olid carload of citrus fnJit.

in' ,915. 1875 Trees Still Produce The very earliest citrus trees ver planted in the Lower Rio ji-ande Valley were planted bout 1875 and still produce weet, fine fruit. That will be ews to many persons. They are- 1 orange trees and grew from seeds planted at Laguna Seca Ranch, one of ths crossroads of early Valley history about 20 miles northwest of Edinburg. Mncedonio Vela was granted about 75,000 acres of -land in what is now northwestern Hidalgo County 'by the -King of Spain long before the 19th Century came to- the world's notice.

That ranch saw the beginning of civilization along the west part of the Valley as this section is known today. The ranch offered hospitality to the Oblate Fathers on- their long treks on Fathers' on their afoot 'between Corpus Brownsville and Rio Grande City, 'the outposts of their mission work. One of the old vaqueros, born. at Laguna Seca more than 75 years ago, told the. story of 'those trees to a newspaperman- a.

number of years ago. "They have- been here ever since I was a he said. "The were planted by children who lived at the ranch, assisted by the priests who had brought oranges to them as presents. Nobody paid much attention to '-ths'' planting, but seedlings --came up. When the trees were young, a hard freeze growers have dered, on occasion," how long citrus will last and how long they will bear.

three chief stages in the development of the Valley citrus- 'first outfollows: experimentation-, realization and commercialization. It is thus riot difficult to trace Valley citrus from fad to'- fortune. The earliest recorded citrus experiments were those conducted at Santa in Cameron County, by A. P. Wright In 1906, while he was of the 160-acre Che-' noweth plantation.

His earlier. horticultural experiments led him to work with citrus. His first plantings were trofoliata, be he soon learned that hardier root stock would be necessary, At about' the same time, John J. Conway arid James W. Holt, pioneer Valley developers, were opening up a great, new framing territory near what is now Mission.

Conway had inspected the Laguna Seca orange trees and visited Wright's experimental planting at Santa Maria, finally inducing him to move to Mission and continue his work. Meantime, Capt. W. A. Fitch, owned.

a large acreage near Mercedes, picked up the beginning of Wright's Santa Maria work and conducted further His efforts, were crowned by growth of the famous Kalofleisch orchard near which he originally owned. About 1903, Wright's -efforts In Mission attracted the attention of Chas. -Volz, -Boy. Conway, Max Welch, J. K.

Robertson- -and Their first experiments were made with the. Satsuina. orange, whose sour orange, root stock convinced' them that, -tfiis type was best suited to "-the Valley area. During. trees were Imported California and Ffcrida.

and sbni'i were obtained from Texas- nurseries. Since several of growth were required before trie trees bore tree dealers took advantage of' the situation' and sold many "sweet orange root stock trees in the Valley. Other trees were found to be infected with scale and other diseases. The old Griffing Nursery in MCAlien was the first to import certified trees and a new era of development began, from these, growers began to bud and graft their own trees, discovering various means -of preventing diseases- and improving the hardiness of the stock- Realization -that an 1 important new -agricultural endeavor had been founded came with rapid development on the.citrus plantings. They quickly became' important enough for many dry- land farmers, vegetable growers and sugar-cane growers to begin-to watch them.

When they began to bear heavily, it was realised to hazard large amount on citrus orchards. John H. Shary In 1912, John H. Shary, Neb- raska and Texas developer who had developed- tremendous acre- ages of farming land south of San Antonio and west of Corpus Christl, came to the Valley on his first inspection tour. He walked through the Robertson orchard and visited other producing acreages.

He entered Valley development with big tracts near Pharr and McAllen, then decided to open the major Sharyland area. In 1916, he' had so thoroughly sold' himself on citrus- possibilities that he sohnaly bought 300 of land and "set it all to citrus, the first big-scale commercial citrus orchard in the entire area. Between 1915 and 1920, small orchards were planted. all along 'the main highway through Hidalgo County. The first solid carload of citrus, both oranges and grapefruit, moved from McAllen in 1915 and was loaded out by A.

P. Hall. In 1921," Shary moved the first solid carload of grapefruit and the Valley's commercial citrus Industry was born. The first census of citrus tree plantings in the Valley was conducted during the summer of 1923 by the S. Department of Agriculture.

It showed a of 3,419,157 first accurate key to prospective production, more than 1,200,000 those trees were less than a year old at the time of the census. The last count, made in 3937, showed a total of 7,040,946 trees, of which 6,145.452 were of commercial bearing age--five years old or older. during these early years of the industry, marketing became a problem of paramount importance. Sensing this coming difficulty Shary inspected Cali- 1 fornia and methods of shipping grapefruit and in 1923 organized the Valley's first cooperative citrus marketing agen- cy. The Texas Citrus Fruit Exchange.

Co-ops Formed Two years later the Rio Grande Valley Citrus Growers Association was formed at Mercedes and in 1932'the Rio Grande Valley Cirrus Exchange was organ- ized. The latter hug now the largest of the group and has absorbed the Mercedes unit. During the Intervening yeari since 1932 the industry has come through the 1933 hurricane, various efforts Rt organizing under both federal and state marketing regulations, difficulties of transportation problems, and rtiffcst competition with other citrus areas of the country. Help: The by-products industry, also rounded by Shary in taking steadily increasing amounts of fruit out of commercial fresh, fruit channels. During the past two or three 5'ears canners have at tunes bought fresh fruit lor canning purposes in direct competition with fresh fruit handlers, creating a.

situation which, gave growers considerable additional profit. During the season Valley sold as fresh fruit, 000 boxes of grapflrult, and 2,830,000 boxes of oranges. During the same season 6,118.000 boxes of grapefruit and 20.000 boxes of oranges were processed, making a total of 11,162,000 boxes of citrus sold as.fresh fruit and 6.138,000 used in processing. This represents a total of 17,300,000 boxes of grapefruit and oranges. a crop of record-breaking proportions.

The 1942-43 citrus crop is expected to be even greater. BEST WISHES TO THE HERALD CITIZENS' STATE BANK DONNA, TEXAS. Member FDIO Happy Birthday! to the Brownsville Herald From An Old Friend THE FRONTIER LUMBER CO. Serving Brownsville 1904 The Browsnville Herald Praise For its fifty years of service. I MORTUARY Since March 3, 1904 GREETINGS To The Herald on this Great Occasion.

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BURRUS FEED MILLS BENITO, TEXAS A Salute To The and the Men Who Make It "Click" you have furnished this section with a good newspaper throughout the past 50 years, and we wish you another 50 years of continued success the Rio Grande Valley is constantly growing, and you'll have to stay one step ahead of if In years to come--as you have done in the years gone by Shippers Precooling Service Brownsville, Texas.