250 WITH THE FLOWERS AND TREES 



multaneous and occurs in late March or early April. 

 A few days of warm weather, and it starts with a 

 rush, and the whole countryside is veiled in white. 

 Mile after mile the roads carry you past orchards 

 where every tree is garlanded, festooned and 

 swathed in a gauzy raiment that seems let down 

 from heaven so pure and daintily fragrant it is, 

 so glorified in the sun. That it should have burst 

 from gnarled and knotty limbs, but now bare and 

 brown, is miracle enough to cure the doubting 

 Thomas in the most unregenerate of us, if we would 

 but heed. It is not a case of just here and there an 

 orchard, exquisite as that would be, but it is the 

 cumulative effect of hundreds of orchards and mil- 

 lions of trees in perfect efflorescence that awakes the 

 American enthusiasm in Santa Clara's blossom 

 time; and when the news reaches San Francisco 

 and the various cities clustered about the Bay, every- 

 body with an automobile, or failing that with 

 change for carfare, electric and steam roads tra- 

 verse the valley in many directions gathers up 

 wife and children and sets out the next Saturday 

 afternoon or Sunday, to see the wonderful sight. 

 Skirting meadows starred with buttercups, and top- 

 ping green hills where myriads of blue lupines and 

 orange poppies revel in the sun; spinning along 

 level avenues athwart which now and again shadows 



