264 RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 



for provisions, and clears $100 per acre. Six Chinamen do 

 the work on ten acres of strawberries, except in the picking 

 season, when three extra men are employed to the acre. 

 Strawberry fields have fallen into the possession of the Chinese 

 within the last five or six years, and the profits to the land- 

 lords are greater than under the old system of paying wages. 

 It would be impossible to grow the berries profitably without 

 Celestial help, and except in a few moist spots without irriga- 

 tion. 



191. Ornamental Gardens. Professional gardeners say 

 that California is better fitted by nature than any part of 

 Europe or the Atlantic slopes to have beautiful ornamental 

 gardens. Our shrubs are more numerous, grow larger, remain 

 green longer, and have a longer blooming season, than those 

 of other States. The rose, the daisy, the pansy, the oelys- 

 sum, the clyanthus punceus, the flowering verbena, the holly- 

 hock, and the calla, or Ethiopian lily, bloom here in the open 

 air every month in the year. The honeysuckle, metrosideros, 

 and myrtle, bloom from March to December ; the geranium 

 and snow-ball from April to October ; the violet from October 

 to May ; the pittosporum from November to March ; the 

 spireas and flowering almond from March to June ; and the 

 camelia japonica from January to May, all in the open air. 

 Persons at all familiar with the cultivation of these flowers in 

 New York, will observe that the blooming season here is, on 

 an average, fully double its length there. Not only do they 

 bloom in the open air, but they retain their leaves through 

 most of the winter months, so that our gardens are never bare 

 and cheerless, as they are in the Atlantic winters. I have seen 

 a rosebush bearing twenty full-blown roses in January, and 

 that in the open air, with no assistance from artificial heat, 

 and no protection save that of clambering up a brick wall on 

 the southern side of an unoccupied house. Our roses are larger 

 as well as more abundant than in the Eastern States, but their 

 perfume is not so strong. The delicate European varieties, 



