The Supreme Court ruled on Monday that a Depression-era government program that requires farmers to turn over part of their raisin crops to boost market prices is an unconstitutional taking of private property.

The court ruled 8 to 1 that the government could not take the raisins without providing adequate compensation.

The court issued decisions in four of 11 remaining cases on Monday, but did not announce highly anticipated rulings on whether the Constitution requires that same-sex couples be allowed to marry nationwide and on the latest challenge to the Affordable Care Act.

The justices will issue more opinions on Thursday and Friday, and end their work for the term next week.Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said it was not an adequate response from the government to say that if farmers don’t want to follow the rules of the raisin market, they can grow something else or find an alternative use for their grapes.

” ‘Let them sell wine’ is probably not much more comforting to the raisin growers than similar retorts have been to others throughout history,” Roberts wrote.

Congress enacted the Agricultural Marketing Agreement Act in 1937 to regulate markets and thereby stabilize prices, and the Raisin Administrative Committee was established in 1949 to govern California raisins, which make up 99.5 percent of the domestic market.

Raisin producers send their crops to raisin “handlers” – packagers – who are instructed by the committee to set aside a portion that will not make it to the open market. That portion is sold through other channels, such as on the international market or to school lunch programs, and any profits are distributed to the producers. Sometimes there are no profits.

The case was brought by Marvin and Laura Horne, who were fined nearly $700,000 for trying to get around the program in 2002.

The Hornes, growers in Fresno, set themselves up as handlers and bought raisins for others. But they declined to set aside the specified portions and were fined.

Backed by conservative groups, the Hornes sued, arguing that the Constitution requires that when the government takes someone’s property, there must be just compensation, whether what is taken is land or personal property.

Roberts agreed. “Nothing in the text or history of the Takings Clause, or our precedents, suggests that the rule is any different when it comes to appropriation of personal property,” he wrote. “The Government has a categorical duty to pay just compensation when it takes your car, just as when it takes your home.”

Justice Sonia Sotomayor was the lone dissenter.

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