274 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



sure, tliat none had more stately growth, gorgeous hues or 

 exquisite fragrance ; and I confess it gave me great pleasure to 

 learn that this delightful spot was a place of favorite resort, 

 and tliat these beautiful flowers — trained by the fair hands and 

 nourished by the sweet smiles of a daughter of Massachusetts — 

 were not 



" born to blush unseen, 



And waste their fnigrunce on the desert air." 



Rose-trees were everywhere to be seen in the gardens, souae of 

 which were six to eight feet high, with stems as large as the 

 . arm, — even our delicate tea and noisette roses attain an ex- 

 traordinary size. We rode through a beautiful avenue one mile 

 in length, bordered with live oak and rose trees planted alter- 

 nately. Green-house plants, such as are seen in our windows 

 for house-plants, here in the open air reach eight to ten feet in 

 height. 



"We were everywhere astonished at the rapidity with which 

 trees and plants grow in California. We saw the common 

 garden fennel ten feet high, the lemon verbena ten to twelve 

 feet, the oleander twenty feet, and the fig, one year old, six 

 feet. The camphor, allspice, guava and other tropical trees 

 succeed as well as in our hot-houses. We saw a Mexican 

 pine which had made a shoot of thirteen feet in one season ; 

 a hedge of prickly pear six feet high and four feet broad ; and 

 grapes in fruit the first year from the cutting. We saw noisette 

 roses and scarlet geraniums trained to the top of a three story 

 house, covering the whole end ; a tree mallow twelve feet high, 

 with stem ten inches in diameter ; and an Australian pea, 

 trained on a water tower, forty-five feet high, covering it en- 

 tirely. 



But what surprised us most was the ease with which such 

 trees and plants as the palms, the American aloe or century- 

 plant came to maturity. At one of the fashionable watering- 

 places we found lodgings provided for us in the cottages, each 

 having palm-trees before its windows ; and it was a common 

 occurrence to find in the gardens the century-plant, which 

 seldom blooms Avith us short of fifty or sixty years, in full flower 

 at the age of ten or twelve years. We saw several from thirty 

 to forty feet in height, and with stems one foot thick at the 

 base. 



