canning factory of his own. There is also a large olive orchard; the cultivation of this fruit and the manufacture of oil is destined to be one of the leading interests of California. A superior variety of prune, known as the French prune, has been introduced, and from the fruit dried prunes of superior quality are manufactured. In the summer the climate is warm and there is no rain or dew, so that prunes and raisins can be dried by the sun alone. There is a large peach orchard, containing the varieties of best quality for canning and transportation. Gen. Bidwell had a

large vineyard for wine, but being a prohibitionist he pulled up the vines, and now grows grapes only for raisins. He makes five hundred barrels of cider annually, all of which is made into vinegar.

Mr. Ware saw acres and acres of squashes, or, as they are called there, pumpkins, producing at the rate of twenty tons per acre; they are valued at $2 per ton. There is no frost there, and they are piled up in the fields until wanted for use. He saw

a photograph of a field which was said to have produced eighty tons to the acre. The peach, apricot, prune, and fig require only four years to make good, thrifty bearing trees. Almonds and English walnuts thrive there; indeed, all the fruits now imported from Europe find a congenial home in California, and our whole country will undoubtedly before long be supplied from thence with all the fruits and nuts now imported. It is only about twelve years since it was known that the various fruits could be grown in California to advantage. Soon after the discovery of gold, in 1849, oats were found growing there, having stalks six feet high, and it was argued that if oats would grow there wheat would also. Last year a surplus of fifteen millions of bushels of superior wheat was exported. Wheat and barley are grown without irrigation.

Oak trees are found growing naturally in various parts of the State and forming park-like scenery. The principal species are the live oak, water oak and a variety resembling our white oak, but producing timber much inferior to that. The atmosphere is very peculiar; standing thirty miles away from the Sierra Nevada, it looks as if there were a descent to the foot-hills instead of a rise. The lumber interest is a very important one at Chico; a flume thirty-eight miles long has been built to float down the lumber, which travels that distance in four hours and a half, and the same water is afterwards used for irrigation.

Fruit and alfalfa require more or less irrigation in the larger portion of California, but the idea that irrigation must be continuous has been found erroneous; continuous irrigation may be required for alfalfa, but it is not for fruit. The fruit in California is of poor flavor compared with that grown here. The cherry orchards are irrigated when the fruit is about ready to swell off. It has been learned that stirring the surface soil forms a mulch which prevents rapid evaporation and is much better than constant irrigation. After irrigation if the surface is stirred with a cultivator it will be dry for two or three inches and keep moist below that; if it is not stirred a crust forms on the surface and the ground is dry for a foot or more in depth.

General Bidwell has on his ranch a colony of Digger Indians, supposed to be the lowest and meanest of all, but the men are among his best workmen, especially as ploughmen. The women and children he employs in picking fruit, etc., and they look tidy and respectable. Mrs. Bidwell has a Sunday school and a day school among them. But Indians in general who have been sent to schools in various parts of the country are apt to return to savage life, and the better educated die of consumption, caused by confinement which is so contrary to their nature.

General Bidwell's farm comprises 2,200 acres; the dairy products amount to $1,200 per month, and there are six thousand sheep and thousands of cattle and horses. But although all the products are carefully put on the market, the farm is not profitable; it is too large. Such farms must be divided into small holdings and managed by the owners; no one man can conduct such an estate to advantage.

Henry Miller, known as the great cattle king, began in San Francisco as a butcher. He bought Spanish grants and owns about one million acres, which he has divided into ranches of 20,000 acres each; he drives around day and night to look after them, and has no rest. He is estimated to be worth $40,000,000. He has no children, and his partner, who died, had none, and the case is the same with General Bidwell and other large landowners. The holding of such great estates is against the spirit of republican institutions, and it seems as if Providence were stepping in to insure that they should be sold and divided. It is certainly for the interest of California that they should be, and the same may be said of the great estates purchased in this

country, by English syndicates, and Congress should take action to prevent such concentration of ownership in land.

John Cragin of New York has an immense estate nearly in the centre of the Sacramento valley, with the Sierra Nevada mountains on the east and the Coast Range on the west. He takes a different course in the management of his estate. It is divided into ranches of about 20,000 acres, each in charge of a foreman to whom he pays a salary of about $1,500. He has provided a complete system of irrigation, and is bringing his estate into condition to put on the market. He cultivates alfalfa largely ; with irrigation it will yield ten tons of dry hay per acre. This is stored in stacks of about three hundred tons each, and he has about 60,000 tons on hand. Cattle will fatten on it. Mr. Cragin has about ten thousand horses; you cannot buy a single horse, but the surplus is sent to San Francisco and sold at auction; the proceeds of a recent sale of fat steers amounted to $38,000. At Riverside a man fed three horses from one acre of alfalfa.

The people of California are happy, contented and self-satisfied; every one thinks his location the best of all, and where every one has the best, of course there can be no jealousy; but every one wants to sell out. They want from $200 to $350 per acre, which Mr. Ware thought too high; it is rather a prospective value. At Bakersfield, there is the best system of irrigation and all kinds of fruit may be successfully grown there. The speaker saw fine specimens on exhibition; including raisins and nuts of all kinds. The peaches were of enormous size; they are put in a strong pickle to preserve them for show.

Jack rabbits, larger than our rabbits and having long ears, abound to such an extent as to be a perfect nuisance. Parties of two hundred or more, are formed to destroy them; a corral is first built by the hunters, who then surround a circuit of four miles or more, and gradually coming nearer together drive the rabbits into the corral. Ten thousand have been killed in one hunt, and two ladies riding out in a buggy killed two hundred with a rifle.

Riverside is the grand centre of the orange industry. Twelve years ago it was a prairie covered with grass and not a tree was to be seen anywhere. Now Magnolia avenue extends for miles in a straight line, bordered with palms, magnolias, and pepper trees, and the orange groves are enclosed with trimmed hedges of Monterey

cypress.

The orange trees come into bearing in about four years; twenty acres have been sold for $40,000. A crop has been sold on the trees for $1,250 per acre, but four hundred to five hundred dollars per acre, is not an unusual price for the fruit. Land and water companies have been formed, and the land sold in lots with water privileges, costing from sixty cents to five dollars per acre. The town is a perfect paradise, filled with beautiful homes; the houses were set back from the streets, and now they can hardly be seen. But oranges cannot be grown without any trouble; the most destructive pest is the cotton-scale; a species of lady-bird, from Australia, was found to be its deadly enemy, and it was imported and propagated, and in two years it destroyed the cotton-scale. There is another scale insect for which another parasite will have to be found, though a kerosene emulsion will destroy it. The gopher, an animal about as large as a rat, destroys orange trees by girdling, but good cultivation will keep them out. The speaker saw orange trees looking yellow, and was told that the owner gathered a large crop, but did not put anything back. He saw a young man from Amherst who went to Pomona with some capital, and had worked hard, and was healthy, happy, and prosperous. Five acres of orange grove is enough for one man to attend to; one can care for such a place better than for a great estate. Mr. Ware concluded by saying that for lack of time and preparation, he had been able to speak of only a very few of the many prominent features of the horticultural resources of California, and that briefly. But though he found California so attractive, he loves his friends and the old associations, and could not afford to leave them. He thanked God that his home is just where it is, but said that unless we go away and return we cannot rightly and fully appreciate our homes.

DISCUSSION.

O. B. Hadwen spoke of the exhibition a few years ago by the Kimball Brothers, of National City, Cal., in the Old South Church, of products of that State, and said that he visited these gentlemen, who are engaged in cultivating olives, guavas, etc., and was most hospitably treated by them.

James Fisher said that he had lived in San Diego two or three years, and that the climate there is in great contrast to that of Oakland. In San Diego there is a breeze from the Pacific every day in the hot season, and the climate is very healthful. Persons

arriving there with bad colds, or even suffering from the sequelæ of pneumonia, have been cured by the climate without taking any remedy. There is no frost and the place is famous for semitropical fruits. A variety of lemon with no seeds and very thin skin is cultivated there, and preparations are making to extend its culture very largely. The Messrs. Kimball have an olive-oil factory and there is also one at San Bernardino.

seen.

Rev. C. S. Harrison, director of the South-west Division of the Nebraska Horticultural Society, who was present, was called on, and said that he was happy to meet this brotherhood and sisterhood of horticulturists. This was his first visit to New England, and he thought it the grandest place to live in that he had ever He would like to exchange some of the rich western soil for the climate of New England. He had lived among the magnificent conifers of the Rocky Mountains, and been engaged in collecting them and was pleased to recognize them at the Arnold Arboretum and at Mr. Hunnewell's Pinetum at Wellesley. He spoke of the beauty of Abies concolor, with blossom buds of the deepest purple and purple cones standing erect, while next to them would be trees with cones of green. On the great plains Norway spruce trees lose their heads, but trees brought from the mountains do very well.

The announcement for the next Saturday was a paper on "The Huckleberry," by Dr. E. L. Sturtevant of South Framingham.

BUSINESS MEETING.

SATURDAY, January 18, 1890.

An adjourned meeting of the Society was holden at half past eleven o'clock, the President, William H. Spooner, in the chair.

The Annual Report of the Treasurer was read by the Secretary, accepted, and referred to the Committee on Publication.

The Secretary read a letter from W. W. Dunlop, Secretary of the Montreal Horticultural Society, thanking this Society for the prompt action taken in regard to the appointment of a Delegate and Judge for the Convention of Fruit Growers of the Dominion of Canada.

Adjourned to Saturday, January 25.