SIZE OF ORCHARDS. 2G9 



remarkably well. The following sorts were named as the most 

 profitable, in addition to those we have mentioned. Early- 

 Strawberry, Summer Rose, Early Harvest, Wine Sop, Rawles 

 Janet, Newtown Pippin, White Pearmain, Roxbury Russet, 

 Rhode Island Greening, Yellow Bellflower and Smith's Cider. 

 The Northern Spy and Baldwin failed, and had been grafted 

 over with Yellow Bellflower and other sorts ; the Newtown 

 Pippin bearing off the palm as the best. 



We visited another of the pioneers in fruit culture in Napa 

 valley. When he commenced he planted peach stones, and in 

 eighteen months gathered fruit from the trees, and sold many 

 thousand bushels in San Francisco, and some at enormous 

 prices. Cherries also flourished here, the Duke predominant. 

 His sales of fruit one year amounted to fifteen thousand dollars. 

 Another orchard lies in the heart of this beautiful valley, of 

 140 acres of fruit trees and vines, all in the finest state of culti- 

 vation ; the only defect being that the trees stand too closely 

 together. They were of twelve years' planting ; many were 

 eigliteen inches to two feet in diameter of trunk, and twenty- 

 five to thirty feet in height. Of the 125 acres, 25 are in grapes, 

 50 in apples, and the balance in pears, cherries, &c. The apple 

 succeeded here ; the varieties were Early Harvest, Red Astra- 

 chan, Fall Pippin, Fallawater, Yellow Bellflower, Smith's Cider 

 and White Winter Pearmain. The view of this orchard, as we 

 rode througli a lawn seeming more like an English park in ex- 

 tent, was grand and imposing ; the whole estate with its grain 

 fields comprising 2,300 acres. 



One of the finest pear orchards at Sacramento contained 

 10,000 trees. The oldest trees had been planted nine years, 

 and some of them were twenty-five or thirty feet high. Like 

 others, the trees were crowded in planting. Here we saw the 

 Beurre Clairgeau and Winter Nelis pear, after only four years 

 planted, twenty feet high and stems full six inches in diameter, 

 heavily laden with fruit. The following varieties were very 

 fine : Beurre Giffard, Rostiezer, Bartlett, Winter Nelis, Duchesse 

 d'Angouleme, Yicar of Winkficld and Scckel. Of the last-named 

 the orchard contained 1,000 trees ; of Winter Nelis a long 

 avenue. This gentleman sent to the New York market in 18G9 

 800 busl els of the Yicar of Winkficld pear ; and the last year 

 he sent to the East more than 6,000 bushels of pears, of wliich 



