PROCEEDINGS OF THE FARMERS' CLUB. 125 



lage, finely situated between his gold-bearing mountains. Again 

 started and passed as before many pleasant farms, or ranches, as 

 they call them here, some deeply and successfully engaged in the 

 culture of fruit of all kinds — grapes, peaches and apricots, in par- 

 ticular; the same means of irrigation having to be pursued as I 

 have mentioned was done at Stockton by windmills and pumps, 

 unless, as is frt^quently the case, a mountain spring is in their 

 vicinity, when the most ingenious methods are resorted to to get 

 and give by its distribution equal benefits to all the plants, under 

 which treatment everything flourishes in the utmost luxuriance 

 till late in the fall. We reached the town of Mariposa at 12 m., 

 and were warmly received by my sons, who had been long expect- 

 ing us. Mariposa is situated, like most of the towns in the mining 

 districts, in a valley between high mountains of gold-bearing 

 quartz. The valleys appear to have been chiefly formed by land- 

 slides at various periods, forming eminences or risings above each 

 other, many of which form good farming land, but all containing 

 more or less gold in particles or large lumps. I am the more 

 convinced in this theory, from a conversation held with our next 

 neighbor, an old, trusty employee of Mr. Fremont's, who informed 

 me that in front of the place where we now are, that was bought 

 from him, and which fronts on the creek or brook, he had in one 

 day taken out $2,300, and the next day $1,700, and added a million 

 of dollars had been obtained within the space of a few hundred 

 feet. Wealth thus easily obtained is as easily got rid of; hence 

 the inhabitants, with but slight exceptions, are woefully deficient 

 in domestic economy. All that is bought, with the exception of 

 beef, is at four times its cost in New York. There being no coin 

 less than a dime in circulation, we pay a dime for a pint of milk. 

 I had an invitation for myself and family to spend a day at the 

 ranch of a Mr. John Neal, formerly a jeweller of New York city, 

 but who got burnt out in the great fire which nearly destroyed 

 this place three years ago, but managed from the wreck of his 

 fortune to buy his present farm, situated about three miles from 

 here. I accepted the invitation, Mr. Neal sending for our accom- 

 modation horses saddled for the journey. We found his place off 

 from the Fremont grant, situated in a valley of some eighty acres, 

 almost environed by high granite mountains, from the debris of 

 which his land is formed, and consequently must, if the theory of 

 Prof. Mapes be correct, contain the sixty-four primaries, and from 

 its apparent fertility must contain them in suitable proportions 



