CALIFORNIA AGRICULTURAL EXTENSION SERVICE [Cire. 18 
regularity. Look down the list. There have been price declines in 
figs, prunes, plums, peaches, olives, pears, and all classes of grapes. 
Fortunately there are a few bright spots. Apricots, almonds, walnuts, 
cherries, and oranges are still in & favorable price position. But this 
in itself does not carry the guarantee that they will always remain 
there. 
Now an over-expansion in tree and vine crops is in some ways 
more serious than an over-expansion in annual crops such as wheat, 
corn, and potatoes. In the first place, since the production from tree 
crops does not increase until several years after they are planted, 
there is not a quick check on plantings caused by lower prices. In 
the second place, readjustment of fruit acreages takes place slowly. 
One hesitates to pull out an orchard which will continue to bear for 
another 15, 20, or even 40 years. 
Now let us look more carefully into the situation regarding some 
of these fruit erops. Space will not permit going into detail here 
recardine each of them. so only a few will be discussed. 
Peaches.—Clingstone peach growers received lower prices for 
peaches this past year than they have in any year since 1910, with the 
single exception of 1915. Some of the important factors bearing on 
the canned peach situation are shown in figure 2. The solid line 
represents the pack of canned peaches in California, which is, of 
course, the United States pack. The dashed line represents the pur- 
chasing power of Clingstone peaches, that is, the amount of other 
commodities which growers can buy with the money they receive for 
a ton of peaches, as compared with the pre-war average. It is par- 
ticularly significant that the trend of purchasing power has been 
downward. This means that if growers are to enjoy the same income 
per acre they had on the average between 1910 and 1914, they must 
aither get higher yields at the same cost per acre or reduce their costs 
ser acre with the same yield. 
One obvious reason for the decline in purchasing power was the 
snmormous increase in the canned pack, as indicated by the rising line 
of trend. In 1910 the pack amounted to 2,500,000 cases, in 1926 to 
14,500,000 cases, and in 1927 to 11,200,000 cases. You will notice 
that the canned peach pack has inereased much faster than the United 
States population. 
There has been a substantial increase in the per capita consumption 
of canned peaches in the United States. A part of this increase in per 
capita consumption has been due to lower prices. Consumers can