INTRODUCTION. 27 



are produced annually; and the number of trees now 

 planted is stated to be 800,000, which are distributed 

 among thirteen counties as follows: Sacramento, 74,000; 

 Santa Clara, 70,000; El Dorado, 56,000; Sonoma, 52,000; 

 San Joaquin, 45,000; Butte, 40,000. The seven counties 

 to wit: Napa, Placer, Tuolumne, Colusa, Alameda, Yolo, 

 and Yuba, have from twenty to thirty thousand respec- 

 tively. 



Although the climate of Oregon is not too cold for the 

 Peach, it is too cool and humid, except in the southern 

 part, and in some topographically fortunate localities 

 where it succeeds well. 



A gentleman in the Walla Walla Valley writes that he 

 raised, in 1869, a thousand bushels of fine peaches in an 

 orchard of five acres planted six years before. If this is 

 reliable, and it is to be taken as an average yield, it sur- 

 passes even the best orchards of the East. But we incline 

 to the opinion that the circumstances were unusually 

 happy, or that the statement is slightly exaggerated. 



This brief, and somewhat hasty, view of the Peach 

 Culture, is still sufficient to show the wonderful capacity 

 of our country for its production in rare excellence, and 

 with the least possible labor or care. While the people 

 of less favored regions have to prepare, if not make, a soil, 

 provide a shelter, and labor, and watch and wait for a 

 scanty crop of small and inferior fruit, the citizens of our 

 most highly favored land have millions upon millions of 

 acres of the most suitable soil, where the trees grow luxu- 

 riantly, and bear bountifully, in a few years, almost 

 without care, and without any shelter except the starry 

 canopy of a benignant sky which our Heavenly Father's 

 love has spread over us all. 



What a wonderful land we have! Mountains and val- 

 leys, and plains; rivers, and lakes, and seas, wheat, and 

 figs, and oranges, and pomegranates; apples, and pears, 

 and peaches; corn and oats; milk, and oil, and wine; flax 



