64 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 



where trees bear so lavishly. An experienced 

 horticulturist of this section gives it as his 

 opinion that a three-year-old tree, speaking 

 generally, covers a circle of twelve to eighteen 

 feet in diameter, and bears in proportion 

 from two hundred and fifty to three hundred 

 pounds of peaches. Apple-trees bear equally 

 well, and until this year it was truthfully 

 declared that a failure of this crop was un- 

 known in the valley. An unprecedentedly 

 late frost in April, however, 'broke the 

 record,' and left us only half a crop. Apples 

 from our neighbourhood won the gold medal 

 at the World's Fair. 



Needless to say that, while it was the sight 

 of native orchards heavy with fruit which 

 was the impelling motive of the original 

 American settler, it is not from the orchard 

 of the native that the magnificent apples, 

 peaches, and other fruits for shipping are 

 culled. The Mexican, unless a superior 

 specimen of his race, is at once too supine 

 intellectually, too lazy physically, and too 

 unintelligent by heredity, to improve upon 

 methods acquired three centuries ago. True, 

 he uses more modern implements, but his 



