THE WAY THEY TALK IN CALIFORNIA. 



and vines, that we are obliged to omit the majority. At Marysville, Beach and 

 Shephard hare 40,000 peach-trees, 5,000 apple, and 5,000 pear, 3,000 cherry, 

 2,000 plums, and 40,000 grape-vines, with a large amount of ornamental trees 

 and shrubloery. G. G. Briggs has nearly 200,000 peach, and 20,000 nectarine 

 and apricot-trees. Gen. Sutter, a great collection, and a garden and grounds in 

 excellent taste. In some cases, most of the labor is performed by Indians. The 

 mulberry for the silkworm, is getting into vogue. Mr. Delmas has eighty varie- 

 ties of grapes, whose thrift and luxuriance afford strong evidence that they could 

 not have found a more genial climate. He has 24,000 grape-vines in all. Mr. 

 Wm. Lent and E. L. Gould, number their fruit-trees by the thousand. Mr. J. 

 Cook grows the Black Morocco Grape in perfection, and all these grapes are of 

 open air culture. Mr. F. G. Appleton has a hundred swarms of bees, doing ex- 

 tremely well. The swarms which Mr. A. had last spring, have produced from two 

 to four swarms each. The honey which has been taken from them is of the finest 

 quality. The experiments which have been thus far made with bees, give every 

 assurance that there is no country in the world superior to California for the honey 

 bee. 



Peach-trees budded the previous year on small seedlings, in twelve months were 

 eighteen inches in circumference at six inches above the ground. The fruit of four 

 old pear-trees, grafted with Bartletts eighteen months, had been sold for $160. 

 Mr. Lewellyn has 25,000 apple-trees, and grew three apples upon grafts inserted 

 the previous winter, and only a few inches from the ground. Mr. Daniels' garden 

 is filled with a great variety of choice fruit-trees and plants, which are cultivated 

 with a skill which few possess in a higher degree than Mr. Daniels, who is one of 

 the foremost minds in California. Smith and Winchell have 100,000 apple-trees, 

 of eighty varieties. Messrs. McMurtrie were offered $10,000 for the produce of 

 100 acres of potatoes. Messrs. Thompson have 18,000 trees, and a vineyard of 

 8,000 vines — the latter protected from the winds by belts and avenues. Their 

 orchard, which the previous year looked, from a distance like rows of half-grown 

 corn, was the next, a forest in which a man may hide himself. Their plan is to 

 plough deep, dig wide and deep holes, and work the ground from February until 

 July, allowing no grass or weeds to grow among the trees. Major Barbour fully 

 expected to realize from $15,000 to $20,000 from two acres of melons, selling two 

 to three hundred dollars worth a day. Twelve pumpkins raised in Los Angeles, 

 weighed over fifteen hundred pounds. Sausevain Brothers have 60,000 vines, and 

 made two thousand and eighteen gallons of wine, and some brandy ; and they have 

 two good wine cellars — one 124 by 15 feet, the other, 90 by 16 feet. California seems 

 destined to stand first among wine producing States. Mr. Cardwell raised a sweet 

 potato weighing twenty-three pounds; they keep growing all the season. Mr. Smith 

 raised a beet measuring three feet six inches in circumference. One tree of Cali- 

 fornia Pear produced, last year, $250. In two small valleys arc found one million 

 of grape-vines. And finally, they even turn their steamboat explosions to account, 

 for " on the Colorado, forty miles below Fort Yuma, in August of 1854, a steamer 

 transporting Government stores was blown up ; and the next year, in places where 

 the sacks had fallen, a One growth of barley was found !" 



And to conclude : " Of the Gloria mundi there were nine specimens, one of 

 which was so enormously large that your Committee feel almost hesitant about 

 giving its weight and measurement. It was seventeen inches in circumference 

 each way, and weighed two pounds three and one-half ounces. It was of the most 

 perfect form, and, in all respects, the most noble specimen of an apple we have 

 ever seen. Had your schedule allowed a premium for the finest si)eciraen, this 

 would certainly have claimed it ; but as we were compelled to consider extent of 



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