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Society. At that shwa, the potential for local fruit and vegetable ranching was apply demonstrated in exhibits of apples, peaches, small • fruits and vegetables. These crops had been produced free of pests in the virgin farm~a~~ of the North Fork and included 105 lb. squashes, huge pumpkins, 2~ lb. onions, 30 lb. beets, oral potatoes measuring 14 inches long and weighing 4 pounds. Sore fruit trees in the Valley were known to bear 20 to 30 boxes of apples apiece. By 1890, an acre of pear trees is said to have been worth $1,000 annual net profit to its owner. Peach trees could be brought into production within twv yeazs, and a full crop could be expected within three years. One individual near Paonia, purportedly harvested 945 bushels of potatoes from only ape acre of land. Six of these potatoes weighed a total of 60 lbs., and one became the world's record potato at a weight of 11 lbs. This was placed an exhibit in the Department of Agriculture in Washington (Rockwell 1975:115-116; also see Fockwell 1938). In the North Fork and Glrnnison Valley, the 1890's thus opened with an expanding population, a substantial stock industry, and the promise of large profits in fruit and vegetable production. The area was free of agricultural pests compared to the east slope agricultural areas. The Paonia area received national recognition as a fruit growirg area at the ~ Chicago World's Fair of 1893, when six first place awazds were accorded North Fork fruit entries. Fruit production soon began to rival the stock industry as the area's leading business, and by the turn of the century, • orchards were being planted on every available tract in the North Fork Valley. Hay fields were turned into orchards, and the national fruit distribution system began to focus on the area. Individual fruit ranchers could not manage more than about 10 acres of orchard at this time, so the larger holdings which had beea~ taken up under the "Pree[[ption Act" were broken up into small parcels and sold to individual operators. The population of the Paonia area thus swelled fran only a very fe+u hundred at a the turn of the century to an estimated 1,000 by abort 1910 (Rxkwell 1975:116-119 and 1938; Hammond 1977). The lure of high profits led more and nr~re people into the fruit industry, and more and more land was put iota orchards. Stories of spectacular wagon trains hauling fruit to the railhead in Delta, some ca~sisting of more than 60 wagons, are crnmonplace in the local folklore today (Rxkwell 1975:33-34). The fruit market had originally been oriented towards the mining carps and towns in the Colorado region. Although fruit was highly profitable prior to the arrival of the railroad in Paonia in 1902 (Beebe 1962:347), it was the owning of the railroad which was the beginning of the real fruit bocm in the North Fork Valley. The caning of the railroad opened a straight channel to national markets, aid the speculative market in fruit lands expanded to becare a proverbial "bubble". During this period, it was reportt~ci that one man sold 10 acres of peach orchard for $3,500 per acre, and prices of $1,000 per acre were purportedly cartronplace (la~ckwell 1975:119). As irrigation water became rrore available, this boom spurred expansion to the dry r~esas and benches oT the south slope of Grand I`3[~sa and gave rise to towns such as Eckert • and Cedaredge which ar.-a aLtt~st exclusively orchard c~mnuutres. ?5