AN OLD-FASHIONED COUNTRYSIDE. 



451 



find early spring, and then winter, still clinging to 

 the mountains. Forty miles east of the orange 

 groves of Oroville, the snow still lies deep on the 

 ground, and the grass blades are still under the sod. 

 It will be July on these high, forest-covered ridges 

 before the bloom-season comes, but how wonderful 

 and exquisite a season it is no one can possibly ex- 

 plain to others. There, in the Sierras, above the 

 line of wheat fields, the wild gardens long lost to 

 the valleys will doubtless remain for years to come. 



flowing rose-fountain as large as an ordinary cot- 

 tage. Orange flowers whiten the trees, where yel- 

 low fruits, still ungathered, shine through the leaves. 

 The snowball tree is raining its multitudinous petals 

 on the lawn, and the Japanese quince hedge is still 

 scarlet, though it has been blooming since January. 

 The tulip tree's lovely flowers of delicate golden 

 and translucent greens are breaking out of their 

 spindle-shaped sheaths. The Japanese pteonies are 

 past their prime, but the Japanese maples are so 



The gardens that men have planted in these 

 coast range valleys are at their best now. I hesi- 

 tate to attempt to describe the fullness of their 

 bloom, lest the reader refuse to believe it. Near 

 where I write are yucca stems eight feet high, the 

 flower spike occupying half that, and containing so 

 many flowers that no one has yet had the patience 

 to count them. The Banksia roses, white and yel- 

 low, climbing to the roof together, and the white 

 La Marques, have just been photographed to keep 

 at least a suggestion of the vast mound of bloom, 

 ■ and the trailing rose-set branches that touch the 

 ground as if drops were falling back from a swift- 



brilliant that they shine in the midst of the shrub- 

 beries like giant tulips from some Saturnian garden, 

 rose-tinted and scarlet, growing among the dark 

 green and pale golds of acacia and lemon tree, and 

 tall feathery sprays of bamboo. 



As one walks along the country roads and path- 

 ways this perfect spring weather, it is evident that 

 some of one's neighbors are suffering keen and 

 well-deserved regrets. Now is the time when the 

 lazy man who has planted no garden, and has neg- 

 lected his peas with no excuse, and has failed to 

 sow his peppers and serenely tend his doubtfully 

 fragrant tomatoes, begins to feel the stings of con- 



