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FRUIT FOR TOURISTS
By V. W. KILLICR
A ROADSIDE FRUIT STAND NEAR SAN JOSE. CALIFORNIA
T H R O U G H O U T Southern
California, along the sides of
its splendid macadamized automobile
highways, fruit
ranchers lately have been
adopting a new method of selling their
products to visiting tourists.
Some of the ranchers have erected attractive
displays of their fruits on their
property abutting the roadways. Bunting
is extensively used for decorating in
many cases while all the stands are provided
with canopies to protect the fruit
on display from the sun's rays. Four or
more upright posts set in the ground
with a frame of light wood on the top
for stretching a plain sheet of canvas
forms a good canopy or in the more pretentious
stands a permanent pergola with
a lathed top thatched with palm leaves
serves this purpose. Xo attempts are
made at constructing houses; the displays
are open to the weather. Oranges,
lemons, grapefruit, melons, peaches and
grapes are displayed frequently on
wooden racks which show them ofF to
advantage. Small baskets and boxes of
fruit are placed about the ground in an
ornamental manner.
During the winter season, when the
orange market is at its height, and the
tourists are thickest in California there
are sometimes as many as five or six attendants
waiting on customers in some
of these booths. Fruit is sold every day
in the week, and Sunday is always the
busiest day.
At one of these farmer's fruit stands
on a popular highway connecting the
cities of Glendale and Pasadena, the
owner reported that as many as two
thousand automobiles pass by his place
in a day and upon one particular Sunday
afternoon the stopping of so many visitors'
cars before his stand blockaded
the traffic. A police officer was sent out
from Glendale to systematize the traffic
confusion and was forced to remain on
the highway the remainder of the afternoon
directing the passing cars.
This rancher also stated he has sold
as much as $500 worth of oranges at his
stand in a month while his most profitable
day brought $97.
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