From the Ohio to the Pacific. 283 



well enough ; but it was a lazy life to what it was in Ohio. The 

 wheat and barley were sowed in the winter, with but one ploughing, and 

 no irrigation is required ; harvested in June by reaping and threshing 

 machines, put in sacks, and piled up in the field until convenient to 

 send it to market. It is fed to horses instead of oats and corn, which 

 do not grow well there. Cattle take care of themselves, and but few 

 hogs are raised ; so that the farmer has much idle time to contend with, 

 which sometimes leads to mischief. The dry season is from May to 

 November, and the wet the other seven months. 



Our party took passage on a fine steamboat down the Sacramento 

 River, one hundred and twenty-five miles, to San Francisco, passing 

 through an exceedingly rich valley, in many places well cultivated. 

 The markets of San Francisco are profusely supplied with vegetables 

 and fruits at cheap rates. Their meats and poultry are not equal to 

 ours. 



In two or three days we separated into squads of ten, fifteen, and 

 tw^enty-five. to travel five or six hundred miles through the country, 



— some to the Quicksilver and the Gold Mines, others to the Geysers 

 and Vineyards, and the largest party to the Big Trees and the Yosemite 

 Valley. My party went to the Geysers — hot sulphur springs, bursting 

 out of the sides of a deep ravine in a high mountain, on whose top is 

 a small lake, once the crater of a volcano. One of the springs puffs up 

 vapor like the escape pipe of a steamboat. We returned through the 

 Russian River Valley, and the beautiful valleys of Santa Rosa and 

 Sonoma, passing by hundreds of acres in vines, and stopping, for a 

 day, to examine the wine-houses and extensive vineyards of the Buena 

 Vista Wine Company, near Sonoma. This company owns some four 

 thousand acres of land, and has several hundred in vine3ard culture. 

 It was formerly managed by the late A. Haraszth}-, and is now under 

 charge of Colonel Snyder. The wines we tasted, both still and spar- 

 kling, were excellent. 



On our route to the Big Trees in Calaveras, we passed through sev- 

 eral rich valleys, and saw large piles of wheat in bags in the fields, and 

 at the railroad depots, ready to be sent to market. We met many 

 wagons, loaded with wheat, drawn by eight to twelve horses or mules 



— the wagons in pairs, one fastened behind the other. 



