?'*; 4 



spread out before a spectator, that portion of it with which he is familiar 

 and the result of that industry in which he is engaged will be most 

 attractive, because it will be under the most intelligent and familiar 

 observation. The people of the Temperate Zone, and skilled in the field 

 culture possible in the latitudes of their nativity, find strangely 

 unfamiliar objects of cultivation unattractive, when the proposition to 

 engage in the cultivation of the unfamiliar object is under consideration. 

 It is for this reason that men migrate upon the latitudes of their nativity. 

 They seek new homes with more favorable environment for personal 

 prosperity, but they do not seek a change of industry, which involves 

 the abandonment of that with which they are familiar for the adoption 

 of that which is new. They feel a confidence in the skill and judgment 

 which observation and experience have ripened in their minds, so long 

 as the question of engaging in industries already familiar is presented, 

 but' they naturally lose that confidence when methods of agriculture and 

 horticulture, relating to unfamiliar productions, are a part of the problem 

 involved in the change of residence. 



The agricultural and horticultural possibilities of California were a 

 sealed book to the pioneer population of this State. The seasons for 

 seed time and harvest were new and strange. The art of agriculture, as 

 it was known and practiced by themselves and their fathers, was inappli- 

 cable here. This is not to be wondered at. The time of growth and 

 verdure, as known to them, was from the spring month of April to the 

 October of autumn. Then followed a winter of death to vegetation, a 

 period of slumber in which all growth was bound in icy chains and laid 

 to sleep in the cradle of winter. To them, spring with its seed time, 

 summer with its ripening suns and autumn with its golden harvests, 

 meant certain specific months of the calendar. They found these months 

 of the old calendar the winter of suspended animation in California. 

 Instead of the June of verdure and blossoms, they found one of russet- 

 brown hills and sun-parched plains, with all the unmistakable conditions 

 of the aridity of death. But on the other hand, they found a later 

 autumn and a longer winter of verdure. Finally the suggestion came 

 that the old almanac was as inapplicable to the seasons of California as 

 the old art of agriculture had proven. Instead of the winter of former 

 experience, they found spring-time to follow harvest, verdure to come 

 with the rains of heaven, growth and vegetation belonging to the months 

 relegated to the rigid bonds of winter in the homes they had left. Slowly 

 the true meaning of the new environment began to be understood. The 

 new art of agriculture followed the suggestion of new vicissitudes in 

 nature, until to-day the art of horticulture and agriculture, as practiced 

 in California, is not known elsewhere in the world, and it is to the 

 material and moral results of this new adaptation of industry to a new 

 environment that your attention is to be called. 



You have plainly indicated to me that you desire the matters herein 

 presented for publication. Therefore, what is said herein will go forth 

 with your endorsement. I earnestly ask that before this endorsement is 



