292 Beyond the Sierras. 



variety, I think exclusively so. The winery is established in the town, not 

 far from the stivlion. A short walk brought us to it. It is of almost incon- 

 ceivable dimensions and capacity. In the season of vintage the grapes are 

 brought in wagon-loads to the winery, and carried aloft in elevating cars, 

 where they are discharged into four great crushers. These are capable of 

 receiving and crushing four hundred tons of grapes per day. I suppose 

 that a large wagon-bed would not hold more than a thousand pounds of 

 grapes in the bunch. At this rate you see that the crushing apparatus has 

 a capacity of eight hundred wagon-loads per diem I It is almost incredible; 

 but our information was received from the superintendent of the winery 

 himself, and can not be doubted. After the crushed grapes have fermented 

 with their own juice in the vats they rise to the surface, and the wine is 

 drawn off below. This is then stored in the great casks to await maturity. 

 The capacity of these casks in the Stanford winery is l,50n,00(t gallons: and 

 we were told that at the time of our visit more than a million gallons were 

 in the casks. 



After a brief examination of this marvelous industry, and just at night- 

 fall, we hurried away to Redding, which was the northern terminus of our 

 tour. On our arrival it was already dark, and the evening was rainy, greatly 

 to the chagrin of the people. The citizens had prepared for our reception, 

 and had spread a b-n-q-t for our benefit. They had done their best, too, 

 and, I believe, were justly proud of the display which they were able to 

 make. You will see from a glance at the map that we had now reached the 

 uppermost limits of the great valley of the Sacramento, and from the eleva- 

 tion it might well be inferred that we were out of the range of fruits and 

 flowers in their season. But not so. The fine reception cards which the 

 committee had provided for us had pinned to each an orange leaf taken 

 from trees in full exposure in the yards and orchards of the place, and every 

 leaf, notwithstiinding the unprecedented severity of the recent squall, was 

 as darkly green and fresh as though frost had never been. These cards were 

 brought away with us as trophies, and mine is now before me. Our banquet 

 was in an upper hall. Redding is, as yet, a sort of frontier town, but the 

 evidences of that fact around us abated no whit from the excellence of our 

 entertainment, and its enjoyment by the recipients. The speeches this 

 evening were unusually good. One delivered by a young lawyer and poli- 

 tician, whose name I regret to have forgotten, was really a piece of elo- 

 quence and good sense in rare combination. The officers and members of 

 our Society were also fairly happy in their responses — not happy because of 

 anything they had taken, but their speeches had the quality of happiness. 

 The festival ended, and again we sought our berths. 



The cards of invitation just referred to were very elegant in their way, 

 having a fine engraving on each of old Mt. Shasta. ShasUi, we soon found, 

 is the tutelar divinity of Redding. True, his lordship is sixty miles away, 

 in his habitation of snow, but in this clear air that distance is only a span. 

 With the early morning we are out to see the town, not much of a city as 



