IN CALIFORNIA 247 



square miles in an all but unbroken sheet of color. 

 Beginning with the blooming of the almonds, 

 which may occur in January, though it is not to be 

 usually counted upon until February, the orchards 

 reach the high tide of their bloom about the first of 

 April. To most tourists the prince of the fruit trees 

 is the orange. The apricot and the prune are only 

 varieties of the plum, the nectarine and the almond 

 forms of the peach, and there is nothing particularly 

 novel in the sight of a plum tree or a peach tree; 

 but the orange to the New Englander or the Middle 

 Westerner is a fruit of romance. To pick your 

 first ripe orange with your own fingers from a tree 

 loaded with two or three thousand more a tree 

 growing not in a tub in a greenhouse but rooted out- 

 doors in the ground like an apple tree is in itself 

 a poetic sort of experience to be talked about long 

 afterwards around the winter fire back East. To 

 quarter the lump of lusciousness with your penknife, 

 bite the fragrant, juicy heart out of each quarter 

 section and prodigally toss the rest away, is to have 

 a touch of what it feels like to be a millionaire ; but 

 to drive on a day in March along a country road 

 where the sunshine lies warm and the larks and 

 mocking birds are singing, and where behind rose- 

 hedges are unnumbered orange trees, crowned like 

 brides for their bridal with myriads of starry, per- 



