42 JVotcs and Gleanings. 



loadeJ daily with strawberries, and others from which a great sliip's cargo of 

 pears could be taken. 



Travel where you will in California, and you get an abundance of fruit. The 

 apples are large in size, and beautiful for color, but they lack the flavor of our 

 eastern apples. Some peculiarity of soil or climate cheats them of that last 

 grace common to all Massachusetts orchards. The Californians do not like to 

 admit the fact, but my testimony is that of every visitor from the east — California 

 apples are dry and insijiid. But when you come to grapes, and pears, and plums, 

 there this State may challenge the world. Her peaches are no better than we 

 get from Delaware and New Jersey, and her berries are of no sweeter delicacy 

 than those we find at home. Her wonderful advantage is, that she has such a 

 variety and such a quantity of fruit : she commands almost every product of the 

 torrid and temperate zones, and she counts her thousands of bushels to every ten 

 of any Eastern or Middle State. She gives her visitors fresh fruit at every meal 

 of every clay in the year ; she produces it with the least possible labor, and no 

 apparent drain upon her soil ; year in and year out she buds, and blossoms, and 

 ripens, and asks little aid but that of the air and the sun. The opulent merchant 

 loads the plate of his guest with fruit ; it is so abundant and cheap that the little 

 hotels of the mining villages in themountainsserve the traveller without stint. You 

 get your hat full of grapes for ten cents ; your driver helps himself and his pas- 

 sengers from the orchards on his route ; when you j^ay for your dinner you are 

 asked to take a couple of pears for refreshment as you ride along. The stranger 

 looking through the city market is invited to help himself to whatever fruit he 

 wants to eat. This is California fruit : you find it everywhere — peaches red 

 and velvety, pears with the color of gold, grapes of green, and purple, and 

 amethyst splendor. 



This is the San Jose valley — the fruit orchard of San Francisco. The section 



for oranges and lemons is farther down the coast, and the Los Angeles country 



is the great wine-making region. But San Jos6 is close at hand. The eastern 



visitor will make a mistake if he omits giving two or three days to the valley. 



If he can continue his stay long enough for one or two rides over the Coast 



Range, that will be a sensible thing. But he comes into this valley for fruit and 



orchards, adding thereto whatever he may for time and inclination. 



Correspondent of the Boston Daily Advertiser. 

 San Jose, Cal., October, 1869. 



History of the Concord Grape. — The editor of the Grape Culturist 

 is quite mistaken in supposing that the original vine of the Concord, grown by 

 Mr. Bull, is not more than fifteen years old. A brief history of its origin is 

 given in a note from Mr. Bull, dated January, 1854, and published in Hovey's 

 Magazine, vol. xx. p. 65. Mr. Bull says that about ten years previous to that 

 time he began to raise seedlings from our native grapes. The Concord was one 

 of these seedlings of the second generation, and first fruited in 1850. The first 

 ripe bunch of the season was exhibited at the Massachusetts Horticultural Soci- 

 ety's Room on the 3d of September, 1853. At the annual exhibition of the same 

 society, in 1854, thirty fine clusters were exhibited, as we well remember; and 

 the same season we afterwards received specimens from Mr. Bull. 



