INTRODUCTION. xiii 



considerably. Of late, many hills which were before untouched by the 

 plow, have been sown in wheat. 



§ 7. Fruit. — There has been a very slight increase in the number 

 "of apple, pear, and peach orchards since 1862, Gherries have been 

 very profitable near San Francisco, and a multitude of trees have been 

 planted in the vicinity of the bay. It has been found that some trees 

 which thrive in the coast valleys do not thrive in the Sierra Nevada. Mr. 

 "Weatherwax, an orchardist at Mud Springs, El Dorado County, has ascer- 

 tained, by trial, that the Benick is the most profitable apple there, and 

 after it come the Red Romanite, the Red Cheek Pippin, Prior's Red, the 

 BeUeflower and Esopus Spitzenberg. The most profitable pears are the 

 Bartlett, Easter Beurre, Yicar of Wakefield and Winter Nellis. Mr. Nick- 

 erson, of Placer County, obtained, as gross receipts from a year's crop on 

 his best trees, eiglit years old, the following prices, viz. : figs, $75 ; pear, 

 peach, apple and plum, each, $60; apricot, $50, and nectarine, $45. 



§ 8. The Grape. — The number of vineyards has increased greatly with- 

 in five years, especially in the counties north of the bay and in the Sierra 

 Nevada. According to the Report of the Surveyor-General of the State, 

 for 1866, in that year 1,312,730 gallons of wine were made, and there were 

 15,410,077 grape-vines in vineyard. It is not determined yet, by common 

 consent among wine-growers, what are the best wine grapes, but many of 

 the most intelligent viniculturists think that for light white wines, the best 

 grapes are the Golden Chasselas, the Burger, the White Rhenish Musca- 

 tella, the Riessliug, the Chasselas Fontainebleau, and the White Green ; 

 and for red wine, the Zenfenthal, the Black Malvoisie, the Black Burgundy, 

 the Running Burgundy, Black Cabrunet and the Traminer. For the table, 

 the White Muscat of Alexandria bears the best price ; and for raisins, the 

 White Malaga, called also the Fiherzagos, is preferred. 



In the first and second editions of The Resources, the largest grape-vine 

 of the State was inadvertently passed over without notice. In 1795 

 Senora Dorainguez, a native of Mexico, and a resident of Santa Barbara 

 County, rode from Monterey to her home, and before starting she picked 

 up a grape-cutting for a switch. When she had ridden twenty miles she 

 saw that her switch was budding, so she took care of it, and after getting 

 to her house at Montecito, she planted it in the garden. The vine grew, 

 and now its trunk is 15 inches in diameter, and its branches are supported 

 by an arbor 114 feet long and 78 feet wide. Its annual yield of grapes is 

 three or four tons. Senora Dominguez, who planted it, died on the 9th 

 Vfay, 1865, at the age of 105 years, after having given more than 300 



