AGEICULTURE. 207 



this rule prevails here, cannot be ascertained until we have 

 given the finer foreign grapes a fair trial. Certainly the Mis- 

 sion grape takes up in most of the vineyards an earthiness of 

 taste which must never be found in wines of the best quality. 

 We cannot yet tell what are our best grape-soils, or how they 

 differ from one another in their influences on the wine. It is 

 certainly no easy matter to make fine wine out of the Mission 

 grape, and most of our wine-makers have little experience in 

 the business. Again, they send their wine to the market too 

 soon after it is made. They often use old barrels and bottles, 

 which may give a taste to the wine. They have also been too 

 careless in pressing graj^es before they were fully ripe, and 

 without picking out the green and rotten fruit. 



§ 153. Berries. — Alameda county cultivates, chiefly for the 

 San Francisco market, four hundred and fifty acres of straw- 

 berries, one hundred of raspberries, and thirty of blackberries 

 — more than all the remainder of the state. The varieties of 

 strawberries most prized a]"e the British Queen and Long- 

 worth's Prolific. They are planted in rows, thirty inches 

 apart, and the plants are a foot apart in the rows. The straw- 

 berry comes into the market in April, and continues abundant 

 till July, but it may be obtained in any month in the year ; 

 and the only reason why large quantities are not grown from 

 August to October inclusive, is, that they are not in demand, 

 because of the abundance of cheaper fruits. It must always 

 be costly as compared with the tree-fruits, because it is more 

 perishable, requires greater cultivation, costs more for pick- 

 ing, and produces less to the acre, The picking alone costs 

 about two cents a pound, being done by Chinamen, who pick 

 forty pounds in a day, and are paid seventy-five cents a day, 

 they providing their own food. The average yield per acre is 

 about one thousand pounds, and the average wholesale price 

 in 1861, during the season of their abundance, nine cents per 

 pound, making a gross yield of one hundred and twenty dol- 

 lars to the acre. The largest field of strawberries contains 

 eighty acres, the second seventy, and the third sixteen. Very 



