1879.] 



THE LANCASTER FARMER. 



i67 



a favorable year borne four tons of grapes, 

 but is now losing its vigor and will probably 

 not live much longer. The state has a num- 

 ber of vines whicli bear 2000 bunches annually. 



(hdnijm.—K good tree, ten years old, will 

 bear 1000 oranges annually ; and the average 

 price of tliese, delivered at the orchard, varies 

 from SIO to »30, or $500 to .f 1,500 per acre. 



Strawberries are cultivated extensively in 

 Santa Clara county for San Francisco market. 

 The best fields of vines in their third or fourth 

 year will yield from 4000 to GOOO pounds per 

 acre, and the wliolesale price in San Franci.sco 

 is about or 7 cents ])er pound, makinc; a 

 gross yield of $210 to .*420 per acre, the 

 cost of picking is 2 cents, of railroad freight 

 4 cent, drayage in San Francisco ^ cent, and 

 commissions 8 percent. The amount of straw- 

 lierries received is sometimes from (iO.OOO to 

 70,000 pounds daily, indiciil ins a lively con- 

 sumption for a city of 180,0(1(1 inluibitants. 

 Strawl)errics are usually grown on tlie shares 

 by Oliinamen, who give half the crop for the 

 land. As the vines produce nothing the first 

 year, and the Chinamen are poor, the land- 

 owner usually loans his credit for provisions, 

 and clears SlOO per acre. Six Chinamen do 

 the work in 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 

 tif the landlords are greater than under the 

 old system of paying wao;es. It would he im- 

 possible to grow the berries profitably without 

 Celestial help, and, except in a few moist 

 spots, without irrigation. 



OrnatiicnUd Gardens. Professional garden- 

 ers say tliat California is better fitted by 

 nature than any part of EuVope or the Atlan- 

 tic slopes to have beautiful ornamental gar- 

 dens. The shrubs are more numerous, grow 

 larger, remain green longer, and Iiave a longer 

 blooming season than tliose of other States. 

 The rose, daisy, pansy, oclyssuni, clyanthus 

 l>etunias, verbena, hollyhock, Ethopion lily, 

 bloom here in the open air every month in the 

 year. The honevsuckle and myrtle bloom 

 "from March to Christmas ; the geranium and 

 snowball from April to October; the violet 

 from Oct. to May, and the camelia, japonica 

 from January to May. Among the creeping 

 vines grown in California is the Australian 

 bean, which has a dense, bright, evergreen 

 foliage, and abundant llowers throughout the 

 year. It climbs stiings, and is therefore well 

 suited to shade verandahs and to grow in the 

 front of porticoes. 



The rose, honeysuckle, veronica, oleander, 

 lanrastiuus, japonica, verbenas, may safely be 

 said to make twice as much wood in a year 

 as they do on the Atlantic coast. The gera- 

 niums" in San Francisco are almost trees. Rose 

 sprouts often grow twenty feet in a season, 

 and other i)lants in proportion. 



Arh(,n'ri(lturc. The cultivation of forest 

 and shade trees is yet very limited in California. 

 For timber purpose s the blue gum or eucalyp- 

 tus is iirelerred on iiccount of the rapidity of 

 its growth and the hardne.ssand durability of 

 its wood. The black locust grows rapidly but 

 it gives trouble by the numerous sprouts that 

 rise from its roots. The sycamore, cotton- 

 wood, Lombardy poplar, the ailanthus and 

 California maple are used for shade. A dis- 

 tance from the coast, where the summers are 

 not very warm and shade is not much needed, 

 tlie Monterey cypress and the pine are pre- 

 ferred on account of their beauty and regu- 

 larity of growtli. 



The largest vineyard of the State is that of 

 the Bueno Vista Vinecultnral Association, 

 which has 300,000 vines near the town of 

 Sonoma. B. D. Wilson, at San Gabriel, has 

 200,000 vines ; L. J. Rose, near the same 

 place, has 130,000 ; Matthew Keller, at Los 

 Angeles, 100,000. In Capo Valley, 36 miles 

 west of Sacramento, there is one of 100,000 ; 

 Pi. Chalmers, at Coloma, has 100,000: B. N. 

 Bugbey, near Folsom, 100,000; S. L. Wilson, 

 near Sacramento, 75,000. Most of these vine- 

 yards are planted with 700 or 800 vines to the 

 acre. 



AjJple.s. Apple trees are generally planted 

 from fourteen to eighteen feet apart. The 

 reason is to prevent injury by the wind and to 

 keep the eartli moist by shading it against the 

 sun. The IVuit usually grows larger here 

 thiui else whnr. The Glorio Mundi, which 

 .seldom exiicils t'ourteen ounces in weight, in 

 California friciuently reaches twenty ounces 

 and some have attained the great size of two 

 and even two and a half pounds. The flavor 

 of apples here is not quite equal to those 

 grown in the Atlantic States. They are less 

 juicy and more mealy. The best varieties, .so 

 far as ascertained, about the bay of San 

 Francisco are the Summer Pearmain, Red 

 Astraehen, June .and Early Harvest, for early 

 apples; the Porter, Gravenstein and Summer 

 Queen for late summer ai)ples; the Baldwin, 

 Roxbury Russet and Rhode Island Greening 

 for fall apples; the Golden Russet, Northern 

 Spy, Yellow Newtown Pippin, White Winter 

 Pearmain and tlu^ Spjt/enberg for winter 

 apples. The best eider apjile is the Smith's 

 Cider. In Sacramento Valhy the Newtown 

 Pippin, Swarr and Rawli.s .hannette, are con- 

 sidered the best winter apple; on the slopes 

 of the Sierra Nevada, from 1000 to 3000 feet 

 above the sea, the Spitzenberg and Wine Sap 

 are preferred. Of the ai)ple trees in the State 

 1.200,000 are in Santa Clara county, 200,000 

 in Sonoma, 00,000 each in Alameda, Sacra- 

 mento and El Dorado. 



Peac/if.'!.— The varieties generally preferred 

 are the Late and Early Crawford, Late Ad- 

 mirable and the Smock. 



Apricots.— The apricots thrive well and 

 bear abundantly. The apricot tree is more 

 healthy than the peach, and produces more 

 abundantly; its fruit supplies the place of the 

 peach in many districts. 



Pears. — The pear is the most healthy and 

 productive of the fruit trees of California. It 

 thrives in all parts of the State, and every- 

 where its fruit is delicate in flavor and large 

 in size. There are pear trees at San Jose 

 which produce 2.500 pounds, or 40 bushels 

 each, of fruit annually. The varieties most 

 prized are the Madeline, Bloodgood. Diane 

 d'ete, Deerborn's Seedling, Seckel and Bart- 

 lett for summer pears; and the Winter Nelis, 

 Glout Morceau and Easter Beurre for winter. 



California has 3,500,000 acres of cultivated 

 land, upon which she raised last year, 17,000,- 

 000 bushels wheat; 6,100,000 bushels barley; 

 3,000,000 bushels corn; 1,400.000 bushels oats; 

 200,000 bushels rve; 10,000 bushels buck- 

 wheat; 1,000,000 bus. peas; 450,000 bus. beans; 

 220,000 tons Irish potatoes; 8,000 tons sweet 

 potatoes; 200,000 bushels peanuts: 130,000 

 bushels onions; 900,000 tons hay, 30,000 tons 

 beets; 3.000,000 pounds hops; 1,300,000 pounds 

 flax; 300,000 pounds tobacco; 150,000 pounds 

 cotton; 16,000,000 pounds wool; 1,500.000 

 pounds honey; 6,000,000 pounds butter; 3,000,- 

 000 pounds' cheese; 6,200,000 gallons wine; 

 300.000 gallons brandy. 



This is a great beer drinking state, hut I am 

 unable to give you the number of gallons of 

 beer brewed. You can form a faint idea 

 however, when I tell you th.at according to 

 the returns filed in the United States internal 

 revenue collector's ofllice of the fir.st district of 

 California, which embraces the City of San 

 Francisco only, there were 260,780 barrels of 

 beer sold during the year 1878. 



Mining.— The annual products of the 

 mines of California may be thus stated : gold 

 $20,000,000; quicksilver $3,000,000; silver 

 81,000,000; coal »800,000: lead $300,000; cop- 

 per SIOO.OOO; borax $100,000; asphaltum $.50,- 

 000: sulphur $.50,000. Total $ 25,400,000. 



Climate.— YoM frequently start out in the 

 morning, chilly as December In Pennsylva- 

 nia, at eight o'clock you unbutton tlic upper 

 buttons of your coat, at nine vou unbutton all 

 the way down, at ten you take it off and put 

 on a light one, at eleven you take off that one, 

 at two it commences to gi-ow a little cooler 

 again, and you put on the light coat again, at 

 three you take it ofi"andput on your heavy 

 coat, at four you button up again, at five you 

 are buttoned up to your chin, and if you arc 

 out on the street you will be as cold as blazes 



until you get warm in bed, and you won't get 

 warm there if you have a lighter cover than a 

 heavy woolen blanket. Yet it is rarely that 

 the thermometer falls as low as 32 degrees 

 Fahrenheit (freezing point.) The number of 

 cold nights in sau Francisco, those in which 

 the thermometer fell to 32 degrees, numbered 

 seventy-four during twenty years, less than 

 four to the year on the average. Of these 

 seventy-four cold days, twenty-four occurred 

 in December, thirty-tliree in January, eleven 

 in February, four in March, one in April and 

 one ill May. 



January is the coldest month in California, 

 having an average temperature of forty-nine 

 desrrecs. .September is the warmest month, 

 and has an average temperature of fifty-eight 

 degrees. October is as warm as July, and 

 some years it has been warmer. In June, 

 July and August heavy, wet, cold mists, 

 come up from the sea at six o'clock in the 

 evening and continue until eight or nine 

 o'clock in the morning. In the winter these 

 fogs are very rare and in these respects 

 winter is the pleasantest season of the year on 

 the Pacific coast. 



The average temperature of Spring is 54 

 degrees. The average temperature of Sum- 

 mer is 57 degrees. The average temperature 

 of Autumn Is .56 degrees. The average tem- 

 perature of Winter is 50 degrees. 



The following table indicates the average 

 temperature each month in the year in the 

 State of California. 



At sunrise. At noon. 

 January, 

 February, - 



March, ... 48 

 April, ... 49 

 May, - - - 50 

 June, - - - 51 " 68 



July, - - - - 52 " 67 



Aui;u6t, . - - 53 " 67 



September, - - 5.3>i " 69 



October, ... 53 " 68 



November - - 49 " 62 



December, - . 45 " 55 



65 



Average, 



49>^ 



Selections. 



THE NEW YORK SEED LEAF MARKET. 



The Tuhiu-i-o Jnurnal say.sof the market and 

 last week's sales : "Pennsylvania of the '78 

 crop is slowly looming up again as an article 

 of trade In our market. It will be dealt in 

 vigorously before much time has elapsed. It 

 must be bought because it is and will be 

 wanted. Those that sold this week profess to 

 have made no money out of it, a declaration 

 which finds hardly any disbelievers. Ohio of 

 the '78 crop also sold in limited quantities, 

 while but little '78 Connecticut changed 

 hands. In 1879 Connecticut purchases, a 

 standstill is perceptible. Farmers claim that 

 it is owing to the weather, which permits no 

 examination of the crops. We claim that 

 packers have come to their senses, and that 

 in future they will not pay extraordinary high 

 prices. We repeat our last week's remarks 

 regarding the '79 Pennsylvania. Growers 

 there need not give tobacco away— they can 

 expect reasonable prices, but not such as they 

 received last year. The crop is too large for 

 that. Many of our exchanges, seemingly, are 

 dissatisfied with the decisive way in which we 

 offer our opinions and advice. We state the 

 condition of things as we find them and draw 

 such conclusions therefrom (which, as we 

 need hardly say, are inevitably unbiased) as 

 our long experience enables us to. Those 

 that heretofore have taken our advice found 

 us correct and gained by it. Last week's 

 transactions sum up as follows : 



Pennsylvania— Crop '77: 200 cases, small 

 parcels, fillers, 13 ceute, wrappers 40 to 50 

 cents. 



Crop '78 : 1,000 cases running; reported 14 

 to 16 cents (?) 



Connecticut— Crop '78 : 400 oases, 17 to 20 

 cents. 



Ohio— Crop '78 : 630 cases, 10 to 12i cents, 

 running. 



