Climate of Souhtren California 369 



thick it is now clear. The mountains appear so near 

 that you feel that you can almost touch them. In a 

 short time a wonderful transformation comes over the 

 face of nature. Along the roadway lines and masses of 

 green appear, and so rapidly do these increase and 

 broaden that in a marvellously short space of time 

 the land, that a week or so before was gray with 

 dead grasses, is now a vivid green. Nearly all this is 

 alfileria and clover. Soon the grain-fields that have 

 been planted sprout, and another hue, that of barley, 

 oats, and other grains, is seen rippling smiling in the 

 sun, and from the tops of hills a covering of delicate 

 green reaching away to the distant sea. 



The so-called rainy season is now on, and if a nor- 

 mal one it should rain a day or two once in three or 

 four weeks. But sometimes the storm continues for 

 a longer time, and there is a " wet winter," and it rains 

 as much as it does in the East, or forty inches ; but the 

 average for Los Angeles may be said to be between 

 fifteen and twenty inches per annum, or half that of the 

 New York year, and the country appears to thrive better 

 on it. If rain fell in the summer the dry, cool climate 

 would disappear. 



In December or January, if the rain conies early, the 

 country is soon a vast flower-garden, a field of the cloth 

 of gold, ablaze on the upland slopes with the Escholtzia 

 or so-called California poppy, while elsewhere gleam 

 the painter's brush, the scarlet mimulus, the bluette, 



