522 TRANSACTIONS OP THE 



ago were covered with chemise and the dens of the coyote and 

 rattlesnake. There are vineyards that, for luxuriance of growth 

 and abundance of yield can challenge the world, as they are rarely 

 equaled and never excelled. Careful analysis of our products have 

 been made, and our grapes found to possess the necessary properties 

 and proportions. Nothing now remains but the application of intel- 

 ligent labor to enable us to take the front rank among the grape 

 growing countries of the world. 



Here on every hand are thousands of acres especially prepared by 

 nature for the growth of fruit trees and the finer varieties of the wine 

 grape, awaiting the homesteader and preemptor. Young men, this is 

 your opportunity. A preemption claim costs you but $200. Clear it 

 up, plant it in suitable vines, care for them well, and in four years 

 you have a property worth $300 an acre. 



PEUIT TREES. 



On some of your land plant the apple, pear, peach, prune; and be 

 sure and not neglect the hitherto forgotten olive, a tree undoubtedly 

 fitted for our soil and climate, as it flourishes best in warm, light, dry 

 earth, and in a temperature averaging, as ours, 55 degrees F. The 

 olive is a paying tree to grow, bearing at four years of age and com- 

 ing to maturity at ten. A mature tree will yield five gallons of oil, 

 pressed from the berries, that is worth from 15 to $10 a gallon. Plant- 

 ing these trees twenty feet apart, we have one hundred and eight to 

 the acre, yielding us, annually, $540 an acre with but little cost or care. 



We hardly remember the name of the eminent commander whose 

 generalship and splendid success reduced the haughty Mithridates, a 

 subject of the iron crown of Rome, but sixty generations of men 

 gratefully remember the same general as that Lucullus, who intro- 

 duced and assimilated the cherry to the climate of Europe. Whoever 

 introduces a new fruit, or proves the adaptability of a new district to a 

 hitherto untried variety, contributes to the salutary pleasure and 

 profit, and will ever be gratefully remembered by unborn thousands 

 of men. 



FORESTRY. 



Speaking of fruit trees brings to my mind another subject that 

 demands the immediate attention of every citizen of the State as 

 well as of this district. Statistics show that in these two counties — 

 Mendocino and Lake— there are twenty-eight sawmills engaged in 

 converting our forests into merchantable lumber. 



Mendocino last year made over 53,000,000 feet of lumber and 15,- 

 000,000 shingles. Add to this the large number of trees yearly worked 

 into railroad ties, shakes, and fencing, with the thousands of cords 

 yearly cut for firewood, and we become astounded at the immense 

 inroads that are being incessantly made upon our timber supply. 

 Estimate, in addition to this necessary exhaustion, the losses arising 

 from forest fires and willful and reckless wastefulness, then certainly 

 the prospect for an approaching early scarcity of timber becomes 

 alarming. Ten j^ears from date, at the present rate of consumption, 

 there will not be a saw log in Lake County. Not only must the 

 greatest economy be used in order to preserve our timber supply, but 

 there are graver, weightier climatic reasons. It is a fact, well attested, 

 that a certain proportion of forest is requisite in all countries to pre- 



