AGRICULTURE. 209 



sale in 1S61 at twenty -five cents per pound. It is in the mar- 

 ket from the first of July to the middle of September. Wine 

 is made from the blackberry in the same manner as from the 

 raspberry, and sometimes the two berries are combined to- 

 gether. 



§ 154. Ornamental Shrubs. — Professional gardeners say that 

 California is better fitted by Nature than any part of Europe 

 or the Atlantic slopes to have beautiful ornamental gardens. 

 Our shrubs are more numerous, grow larger, remain green 

 longer, and have a longer blooming season, than those of other 

 states. The mayo and malva trees, the rose, the daisy, the 

 pansy, the oelyssum, the clyantlius punceus, the flowering ver- 

 bena, the hollyhock, and the calla or Ethiopian lily, bloom here 

 in the open air every month in the year. The honeysuckle, 

 metrosideros, and myrtle, bloom from March to December ; 

 the geranium and snow-ball from April to October; the violet 

 from October to May ; the pittosporum from November to 

 March ; the spireas and flowering almond from March to June ; 

 and the camelia japonica from January to May, all in the open 

 air. Persons at all familiar with the cultivation of these flow- 

 ers in New York will observe that the blooming season here 

 is, on an average, fully double its length there. Not only do 

 they bloom in the open air, but they retain their leaves through 

 most of the Avinter months, so that our gardens are never bare 

 and clieerless as they are in the Atlantic winters. I have seen 

 a rosebush bearing twenty full-blown roses in January, and 

 that in the open air, with no assistance from artificial heat, and 

 no protection save that of clambering up a brick wall on the 

 southern side of an unoccupied house. Our roses are larger as 

 well as more abundant than in the Eastern states, but their 

 perfume is not so strong. 



A marked feature of our ornamental gardening is our ability 

 to cultivate in the open air many plants which can only be pre- 

 served in this latitude east of the Rocky Mountains under glass 

 and with the aid of artificial heat. These plants are too nu- 

 merous to be all specially named here ; but some of the more 



