NOTES ON AN AMERICAN TOUR. 
181 
the whole plain, as far as the eye could reach, was covered 
with gigantic plants of cactus, yuccas, and aloes, grand 
yuccas with splendid spikes of flowers standing 20 feet high 
or more, and enormous dead stems 80 feet high and 1 foot to 
1\ feet diameter, presenting most strange and uncouth shapes. 
Cactus plants in great numbers, some globular, as large as a 
small barrel, just bursting into bud all over, others llat-leaved, 
in patches as large as a dining table, with leaves as big as 
small plates ; and cactus trees standing up like weird giants, 
one 10 feet high and 19 inches diameter, bursting into bud 
(in the garden of a station open to the platform), and another 
as high with a bunch of lovely white flowers at the top, each 
as large as a wine glass. Still larger plants were seen after¬ 
wards on the plain in passing by the train, with great vertical 
side branches. Large quantities of beautiful flowers were seen, 
and while stopping at stations we just stepped off the carriage 
platform to pick escholtzias and gallardias and others of our 
favourite garden flowers growing wild in abundance and in 
rich flower. The train, approaching Los Angeles on the 
Pacific coast, gradually descends from the high table land to 
the sea level, and at one point, at 150 miles from the coast, 
actually drops 260 feet below sea level on passing across a 
great depressed sandy track, probably an old lake bottom now 
dried up; for sixty miles length the line is below sea level. 
Eighty miles before Los Angeles in South California we 
passed through a remarkably fertile corn-growing valley ; a 
fine wheatfield, miles long and more than half-a-mile wide, 
continuous without a single fence or break, and joining on to 
continuous barley crops at each end, extending altogether as 
long as half-a-dozen miles; Large tracks of the barley were 
cut and being carried (at the end of May), and the wheat was 
nearly ready for cutting. Barley is grown very extensively 
in Western America as horse food, instead of oats, which are 
little used ; barley is found the more suitable food for the 
sturdy half Mexican horses that are used in the mountainous 
districts for coach traffic, where the time of each run is very 
long on account of the very hilly roads, although the distances 
are not great. 
The new American reaping machine was seen at work, by 
which the corn is not only reaped, but is also threshed, 
winnowed, and sacked, all continuously in the same machine, 
avoiding the extra labour and the loss arising from subsequent 
handling of the grain. The corn is cut close below the ear, 
and the straw left on the ground The machine is followed 
in the field by waggons, which are loaded with the sacks of 
grain that are delivered by the reaping machine ready filled, 
