FRUIT GROWING IN CALIFORNIA. 



39 



Santa Clara Co. has the largest horse farm in the world. 

 ,, ,, Cherries have netted over £260 an acre in 



one year. 



„ has 16,624 horses, 25,197 cattle, 2,972 sheep. 

 ,., ,, has the largest University (Stanford's), with 



an endowment of £3,000,000. 

 In „ there is not a month during the year when 



some kind of fruit does not ripen in the 

 open air. 



„ ,, has the lowest rate of taxation of any county 



in California save one — Yolo County. 

 No other section of the world produces the same number of 

 varieties of fruit as are grown in Santa Clara County. 



The number of trees in Santa Clara County in 1896 were as 

 follows :— Apple 44,840 ; Apricot 535,099; Cherry 159,098; 

 Fig 2,241 ; Lemon 1,554 ; Nectarine 894 ; Olive 17,886 ; Orange 



I, 835; Peach 405,731; Pear 144,877; Plum 45,562; Prune 

 2,961,114 ; Quince 1,308 ; Almond 24,050 ; and English Walnut 



II, 672. 



No paper or papers ever written can express one half of the 

 charms of the ideal country of California, or reveal its beauties, 

 its glories and charms, as a fruit-growing district, as a health 

 resort, as a centre of industry, or as an earthly paradise wherein 

 one can reside, and spend the last few years of life, after the 

 struggles and toils of many years of hard labour, worry, and 

 trouble — a place for the poet, the artist, the novelist, the 

 naturalist, the botanist, and in fact any who desire to see the 

 beauties of nature revealed and expounded. 



It may be well for me to reproduce the following prose gem 

 by the late talented Bayard Taylor, whom death, alas ! deprived 

 of ever realising the fruition of his hopes. This is what he 

 wrote : — " Then let me purchase a few acres on the lowest slope 

 of these mountains, overlooking the valley and with a distant 

 gleam of the bay. Let me build a cottage, embowered in Acacia 

 and Eucalyptus and the tall spires of the Italian Cypress. Let 

 me leave home when the Christmas holidays are over, and enjoy 

 the balmy Januarys and Februarys, the heavenly Marches and 

 Aprils of my remaining years here, returning only when May 

 shall have brought beauty to the Atlantic shores. Here shall 

 my Hoses outbloom those of Passtum ; my nightingales sing, my 



