340 HUMOROUS FEATURES. 



In summer the roads are very dusty in California, and this 

 dust is a disadvantage to the tobacco planter. On some of 

 the plantations double rows of shade trees are planted along 

 the main roads, and gravel is spread on the interior roads ; 

 and to protect the fields of tobacco from the high winds 

 which sweep through the California valley, almonds and 

 cottonwoods are planted for wind-breaks in the fields. 



Some of the planters employ Chinese to cultivate the 

 plants, who are very careful in hoeing and weeding the 

 tobacco, living an apparently jolly life in shanties near the 

 fields. A witty California correspondent of the Tobacco 

 Leaf writes concerning the early cultivation of tobacco in 

 that State : 



" We are doing a great many other things in California 

 now besides raising grain, fruit, wine, wool, and gold. We 

 are doing a lively business in tobacco. Fifteen years ago I 

 was down East on one occasion when they were gathering 

 the tobacco crop which goes to New York, and, by a pro- 

 cess equal to wine making, becomes Havana tobacco. It 

 struck me that this country was admirably adapted to its 

 cultivation, and I brought back some seed, which I gave to 

 a friend living on the bank of the Sacramento River, 

 instructing him to plant it as per direction given me. We 

 eat down and calculated the immense fortune we would 

 make raising tobacco, if the experiment was a success. A 

 week later my friend, who was an impatient sort of a fellow, 

 wrote me just a line * No results.' I replied, and asked him 

 if he expected a crop of tobacco in seven days. A few weeks 

 later he wrote, < Here she comes ; ' two weeks later, ' How 

 big is the stuff to be ? ' two weeks later, * Not room for 

 tobacco and me too. Who shall quit ? ' I heard no more for a 

 month and thought I would go up and see it. I did so, and 

 the steamboat landed me at my friend's ranch. I could not 

 see the house, and hallooed. I heard an answer from the 

 depths, and then following a path, I found my friend swing- 

 ing in a hammock in the shade of a grove of tobacco trees. 

 I desire to maintain my reputation for truth and veracity, so 

 necessary to a correspondent, so I won't say how big or how 

 high those tobacco plants were ; but my friend's hammock 

 wag slung from them and he was no feather-weight the 

 leaves completely embowered the cottage. I congratulated 

 him on the results such a grove and such a shade and 



