IN CALIFORNIA 249 



Beautiful as is the blooming of the citrus-fruit 

 trees, the glory of it would be greater if it came 

 upon leafless branches. As it is, the heavy, dark 

 green foliage breaks up what would otherwise be a 

 solid mass of white, and somewhat dims the gen- 

 eral effect. The flowers of most deciduous fruits, 

 on the other hand, come before the leaves, and turn 

 the tree for the nonce into a huge posy of solid 

 white or pink. The effect of square miles of fertile 

 valleys and foothill slopes so draped in ethereal 

 color is indescribable, and has caught the popular 

 fancy of Californians to such an extent that in the 

 fruit-growing districts the blossoming of the trees 

 is becoming a time of festival. The Santa Clara 

 Valley, for instance, which extends for fifty miles 

 southward from the head of San Francisco Bay, 

 with a width of fifteen or twenty, is practically given 

 over to orchards of deciduous fruits. Of the five 

 million bearing trees in this beautiful valley, fa- 

 mous from early Mission days for its fertility, three 

 and a half million are prunes and there is besides a 

 considerable sprinkling of pears and cherries. The 

 rest, something over a million trees, are apricots 

 and peaches. After the blooming of the latter 

 usually in early March, a very pretty display in it- 

 self, the real blossom show occurs the flowering of 

 the prunes, the pears and the cherries, which is si- 



