THE RAISIN IN HISTORY

Evening Post, Volume CXXIV, Issue 71, 21 September 1937, Page 10

THE RAISIN IN HISTORY

The. story behind the growing of raisins in California is a fascinating chapter in the history of that State— a story of Spanish exploration and of thrilling voyages around the Horn. From the remote time when the Spanish adventurers first brought grape cuttings to the mission settlements until the present day the growth of California and the evolution of the raisin industry have been as inextricably intertwined as the convolving limbs of the grapevine itself. Raisins were once a rare and costly dtlicacy. Thousands of years before the territory of California was visited by the Spaniards, raisins were known and greatly prized in Asia Minor. It is even recorded in the Bible that King David of Israel accepted raisins as payment of taxes; and in 430 B.C. a Babylonian mortgage, the earliest known document of its kind, called, for the settlement of both principal and interest in dried grapes. From its beginning in Asia Minor, raisin-grow-ing spread to the plains of the territory thai is now Italy, and from there was transplanted to Spain, which for centuries was the greatest raisin-pro-ducing country of the world. It was then that ■ the Spanish adventurers brought cuttings to California to be planted in the Mission gardens,