MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS. 245 



All in all, California has its disadvantages like every other country. 

 Suecessfnl fruit-growing is on the wane. Grape disease has killed the 

 vineyards. Scale and fungus are on the orange. Their lemons, we 

 know from experience, do not rank with the foreign fruit. Pears and 

 plums still hold their own, but the curculio keeps his grip packed and 

 may be expected on any train. 



Everything is so totally different here that a Missourian would 

 have to begin and learn all over again, and some evening, would see 

 him sitting at the roadside on a Eucalyptus stump, his feet ankle deep 

 in dust, and softly warbling to himself as he gazed into the fog : 



I see the green Missouri hills, 



The apple blossoms round me blow, 



And all my heart with longings fills 

 For the people that I used to. know. 



Mrs. Grace Durkes. 



The poem of Edna Dean Proctor, which appears in the Century 

 for September, has carried conviction and an enthusiastic assent to the 

 selection of corn — the Indian Maize — as being native, characteristic, 

 ^ui generis, and altogether appropriate. Miss Proctor, with the instinct 

 of a true poet, has interpreted the American taste and preference. If 

 the choice were put to vote, with these winning and convincing lines 

 freely circulated among the people, there could be no doubt of the 

 decision. We quote the closing stanza : 



The rose may bloom for England, 



The lily for France unfold ; 

 Ireland may honor the shamrock, 



Scotland her thistle bold ; 

 But the shield of the great Republic, 



The glory of the West, 

 Shall bear a stalk of the tasseled Corn, 



Of all our wealth the best. 

 The arbutus and the golden-rod 



The heart of the North may cheer, 

 And the mountain-laurel for Maryland 



Its royal clusters rear ; 

 And jasmine and magnolia 



The crest of the South adorn ; 

 But the wide Republic's emblem 



Is the bounteous, golden Corn I 



