Garden- 



A GLIMPSE OF THE MILLENNIAL AGE, AND A REVIEW OF GARDENING IN THE GOLDEN STATE THE GARDEN 



GOLD MINES OF THE FUTURE ON THE PACIFIC COAST. 



Horticulture, in its best estate, is one of the fac- 

 tors in the evolution of a noble and refined social 

 order. Not without hitter knowledge of the tempta- 

 tions of cities and politics, the wise Lord of Verulam 

 wrote : " Men come to build stately, sooner than to 

 garden finely, as if gardening were the greater per- 

 fection." And so it is, perhaps, a matter of world- 

 wide importance when a garden-loving people begin 

 to develop new features of this ancient art, under 

 peculiarly favorable conditions of soil and climate. 

 The horticulturist has found but one California on 

 the continent. No one, except the individual con- 

 cerned, cares at all whether or not there is money 

 in this thing ; but every thoughtful person cares 

 greatly whether or not a very Italy for beauty, a land 

 of new and exquisite garden surprises, is being cre- 

 ated in the hidden^vales, and on the mountain sides 

 of Coast Range and Sierra. It may happen that, a 

 hundred years hence, lessons for the healing of the 

 nations will come from the associated horticultural 

 enterprises now in their infancy on the Pacific Coast. 

 At least, I am sure, the potential garden-art of Cali- 

 fornia works towards higher ends than the pleasure 

 and profit of the gardeners themselves. From homes 

 in such rose-gardens as the world has never yet seen, 

 American colleges may yet gather their best students. 

 In the colony farm-gardens by the hundred and 

 thousand, educated men and women may yet live by 

 intensive horticulture, and slowly infuse higher ideals 

 into the organization of the state. Perhaps the full 

 development of California horticulture will some 

 day take the sceptre of political power from the cities 

 and place it forever in the hands of educated subur- 

 ban communities, trained in the rights and duties of 

 local self-government. 



Twenty years ago the tendency of things in Cali- 

 fornia was to destroy the small farmer, the small 

 fruit grower, the ten-acre colonist, the gardener, and 

 the garden. Vast empires were being conquered by 

 capitalists, stolen from the Government, seized from 

 the herdsmen and miner, watered by river-like canals, 

 sown to wheat and alfalfa. One heard of plans for 

 orchards of ten thousand acres, vineyards to cover 

 whole valleys. Slowly the high cost of labor here, 

 and all the disintegrating influences that oppose a 

 landed aristocracy, began to destroy the fabric. The 

 profits of the large rancher lessened : the profits of 

 the horticulturist increased : the small homestead 

 set in the midst of a garden is becoming the Cali- 

 fornian ideal. For this the whole country, a wilder- 

 ness of fertile hills, a land like a vaster Palestine, 

 is thoroughly adapted, and can in no other way ful- 

 fill its destiny. The value for the present year of 

 the purely horticultural products, fruits, wines, vege- 

 tables, flowers, in the state of California, will be, it 

 is estimated, something like thirty-six million dollars. 

 The growth of the cereals is still the greatest indus- 

 try of California, but horticulture comes next, and 

 in ten years more will undoubtedly outrank all other 

 pursuits. 



Mining, manufactures, general f a r m i n g, c o m- 

 merce, are all to be but the hand-maidens of horti- 

 culture in California. Here, then, if the present 

 promise is broadly fulfilled, a commonwealth is to 

 develop differing in vital respects from the other 

 American commonwealths. What a pregnant fact 

 it is that in the single county of Fresno (fifteen years 

 ago a sheep-range county), four thousand eight hun- 

 dred acres of new orchards and gardens were planted 

 last winter by about five hundred different colonists 



