The Price of Raisins in 1893

We came across this interesting tidbit that’s dated all the way back to 1893. Hold on, we’re going to have a little fun with this!

It appears to be part of a Bill of Sale of sorts describing the yield from 2 1/2 acres where the owner is reporting that he grew 11 1/4 tons of raisins. We’re not sure if that’s a comparable yield to today – do you know?

For these raisins they received $1,158.52 in 1893 dollars. We found a calculator online to see what that might be worth in today’s dollars and it’s a sizable $38,344. That’s not bad from a 2.5 acres parcel is it?

The Sultana Grape Varietal

We looked up the Sultana grapes mentioned. They are medium-sized green grapes and are grown primarily in California.

We found out that the grapes go through a drying process where they are dipped in a solution and put through large dehydrators. They take just a few hours to dry! That’s today, back in 1893 we can only imagine that they were dried naturally in the sun for 3 to 4 weeks.

Have you tried a modern day Sultana? You think not? We bet you have. They are also called Golden Raisins and as grapes they are labelled as Thompson Seedless! Surprise!

If a Ton is equal to 2,000 pounds…

J.P. Johnston says that he pulled Eleven and One Quarter tons of Sultana Raisins. That’s roughly 22,500 pounds of raisins. That little box of raisins you put in the kids school lunch holds about an ounce. There’s 16 ounces in a pound, so J.P. grew about 360,000 boxes of raisins.

Google suggests that the average raisin weighs in at 3/4 of a gram. We know that it takes 28.3495 grams to make up an ounce… or in another way, in Sultanas that each weighed 3/4 of a gram that would be 37.8 Raisins, right?

Following along that theme, if we counted each individual raisin that J.P. got from his land, that would be over 13 Million of those delicious little guys!

The Maths: 11.25 x 2,000 x 16 x 37.8 = 13,608,000

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FresYes Writing Team

We say “Yes and” to our community, which we love to work and live in. We always speak positively about our growing business, each other and the Fresno community. We are proud to support local businesses, engage in what’s happening in our community and lovingly participate in as many volunteer activities as we can as individuals and as a collective group. We are generous and we are proud to give back.

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