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tlie fertile fields, which are capable of supporting a much denser popula- 

 tion tii*u has ever occupied them. 



The almond and olive in Calipornia.— Captain Jonathan May- 

 hew, of Santa Barbara County, California, has succeeded in gTowing 

 several tine specimens of the almond tree. One tree of the Lan- 

 guedoc variety, two jears old from the bud, produced five hundred and 

 fourteen nearly full-sized almonds, Tlie tree is eight feet high with a 

 top spread of nine feet. Other trees of the same age are equally thrifty. 

 A three year-old Languedoc tree measures thirteen feet high, with a top 

 spread of thirteen feet. Other three-year-old trees nearly equal this 

 one. Four trees, four years old, are bending with fruit. These older 

 trees will probably average 3,000 or 4,000 nuts, or 30 to 40 joounds per 

 tree. The wholesale price of the nuts is seldom less than 25 cents per 

 pound. Captain Mayhew has also, on his farm, three-year-old olive 

 trees propagated from cuttings, three inches in diameter, which are ten 

 and one half feet high, and are thrifty and promising. The Santa Bar- 

 bara region presents very favorable conditions for olive growth. Cap- 

 tain Mayhew does not resort to irrigation, but jiractices deep i^lowing 



Sheep husbandey in Calipoenia. — INIonterey County is a great 

 sheep-walk. Flint, Bixby & Co., of San Juan, on 200,000 acres of land, 

 graze 75.000 sheep and thousands of cattle. We learn that they sheared 

 this spring over 300,000 pounds of wool, realizing $95,000. The Breens, 

 on 25,000 acres, feed 3,000 sheep and large numbers of cattle and 

 horses. P. Vacca & Co. have 10,000 sheep; Hernandez, 20,000; J. D. 

 Carr, 15,000; E. J. Donellv, 16,000; A. Mitchel, 2,500; Eeynolds & 

 Eussel, 5,000; Gooderich & Baker, 8,000; Moore, 7,000; Pendlaton, 

 1,500; Grogan, 1,500; Dr. Matthews, 1,500; D. Wilson. 1,500; D. Dodge, 

 2,000; W. H. Stone, 2,000: J. W. Stone, 3,000; N. Crooks, 2,000; E. 

 James, 2.000; Wilcox & Bro., 3,000; U. Matthews, 2,000; T. Butter- 

 field & Son, 1,000, besides 200 xVngora goats, worth from $100 to $500 

 each. The total of all the above fiocks is 203,500 sheep. 



Thin seeding. — George Wilkins, Wix Vicarage, (England,) a corre- 

 spondent of the Gardeners' Chronicle, gives the results of his experi- 

 ence as follows : For fourteen years in succession he never exceeded 

 two pecks, or sixteen quarts, of seed- wheat to the acre, and sometimes 

 used less than one peck, and yet, in each of two of those years he har- 

 vested 50 bushels of wheat to the acre, and the average of the fourteen 

 crops in fourteen years was 44 bushels to the acre. The seed was 

 sown with a drill. One of the conditions necessary to the production 

 of large crops from thin seeding he states to be the sowing of the seed 

 early in the fall, that the plants may have a fair start before the setting 

 in of winter. Thorough drainage he also deems an essential condition. 



Cultivation of the plains. — R. S. Elliott, industrial agent of the 

 Kansas Pacific Railroad Company, who has been experimenting exten- 

 sively along the line of the road with the cereals, grasses, and fruit and 

 forest trees, reports that his " experience already warrants the belief 

 that we may grow on the plains, without irrigation, lucern and other 

 valuable forage plants; winter and spring grain, ami trees from seeds, 

 as far west as the one hundredth meridian, and probably to the mount- 

 ains. Experiments now in progress, justify the faith that trees from 

 seeds, cuttings, and young plants may be grown for timber, fuel, and 

 fruit in all parts of the plains between the Platte and the Arkansas 

 Rivers. The growth of living storm-shields along the line of the Kan- 



