Edith Daley: About Prunes and Poems and 'Cover Crops'
About Prunes and Poems and ‘Cover Crops’
San Jose Evening News
September 18, 1918
“A prophet is not without honor save in his own country.” That may apply to a product. While it is no doubt true that California soldiers may resent being known as “prune pickers” and almost anyone hates to be told that he is “full of prunes”, it is an undisputed fact that the immortal William Shakespeare did not despise the lowly prune. He left the following indisputable evidence:
“I must have saffron to color the warden pies // Four pounds of prunes, and as many raisins o’ the sun.”
In perfect accord with William we own an unswerving allegiance to the sun-kissed prune — The California prune — fresh, dried, stewed, glace, or stuffed. Just any old way it is worthy of respect. We even have learned an altogether new feeling of dependence upon it as a source of revenue since the weather man’s latest unpleasantness.
We shivered to the very depths of our county pocketbook when the un-timely rains descended. Fortunately, the floods didn’t come - or the wind. That saved the day - and part of the crop. We’ll just have to make the best of things - remembering that the old law of compensation goes right on working, rain or shine. We’ll find a “song somewhere” if we stop fussing.
Maybe the disguised blessing is the resultant good from the “cover crops” that the learned doctors of Pomology from Berkeley have told us to get busy and plant. If we give the soil lots of green feed we’ll have bigger and better prunes than ever before - and more than them. Do remember what Whitcomb Riley said about rain?
“It’s no use to grumble and complain // it’s just as cheap and easy to rejoice // when God sorts out the weather and sends rain // why, rain’s my choice!”
There’s one queer thing about the prune - it isn’t a prune at all until it is dried. It’s a plum. The “mother” of our Santa Clara Valley prune was the French prune grown in the valley of the Loire, but the offspring has so outranked it’s maternal ancestor that they are hardly on speaking terms. California is not alone in prune growing but our product is the best. Spain and Portugal raise plum-prunes and they are exported in large quantities from Serbia and Bosnia. The industry in the “Valley of Heart’s Delight” is comparatively of recent development.
In the “25 Years Ago” column of The News during the past month there was an item to the effect that the first carload of California’s prunes had just been shipped east. At that time the first prune trees planted themselves firmly in the rich valley soil - soil of decayed vegetation washed down from the forests to a depth of 50 feet. In the years between then and now mile after mile, the soldierly rows of trees have gone up and down the valley until in quantity and quality - and size - our “sun-kissed prune” is unsurpassed.
There is nothing in the big out-of-doors garden more wonderful than the sight of thousands of these trees lifting their blossom-laden arms to God or bonding earthward with their rich harvest of abundance. Each tree is a poem - only lovelier. In the Santa Clara Valley when the prune trees blossom or bear their autumn tribute one remembers our dead soldier-poet’s beautiful poem: “I think that I shall never see / a poem as lovely as a tree / a tree whose hungry mouth is pressed / against the earth’s sweet flowing breast / a tree that looks at God all day / and lifts her leafy arms to pray. / a tree that may in summer wear / a nest of robins in her hair / upon whose bosom snow has lain / who intimately lives with rain / poems are made by fools like me / but only God can make a tree.