Febrna-y S. IfSl. ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
101 1 
M y attention is, for the time being, rivetted upon an article in 
your issue of December 19th, 1889. In this article Mr. 
^Vright quotes from a gentleman who spent a few months in Cali- 
ifornia, caught a fever there, became homesick, and in the delirium 
•of his fever—for at the time of penning the lines referred to he 
■could not have recovered—he gives vent to the most outrageous 
statements concerning a country of which, if in his right mind, he is 
absolutely and totally ignorant. His assertions are so glaringly in¬ 
correct that I may well be pardoned for touching upon personal 
mutters in the attempt to show your readers that I know something 
whereof I speak, and that I have some right to speak plainly. 
Regarding references in England, my father, Mr. W. T. Coates 
cf Henley-on-Thames, and Mr. F. Warren of Banbury, late of 
Oroydon, and a friend of the Rev. W. Wilks, the Secretary of your 
Royal Horticultural Society, can furnish any and all that might be 
■desired. As to my standing in California, I can simply mention the 
name of Professor E. W. Hilyard, in charge of the Department of 
Agriculture at the State University at Berkeley, any of the officers 
cr members of the State Horticultural Society, of which I am a 
Director, the Secretary’s office being at 220, Market Street, San 
Francisco. I have been actively at work in California for fourteen 
years as a nurseryman and fruit grower, as against the Doctor’s 
sojourn of a few months in, presumably, a very small part of this 
State, and then ill with fever. 
This gentleman observes, and hopes the Journal will be kind 
enough to insert it, “ There is not a blade of grass in the State 
growing naturally, no hay therefore and then this remarkable 
genius goes on to say, “ I have written down a few facts which I 
have seen myself.” Perhaps he will explain how, in a few 
months, while he was ill with fever, he travelled over a country 
between 700 and 800 miles long, and several hundred miles wide ; 
and containing 100,218,560 acres! “Not a blade of grass in the 
State !” While I write, the whole of California, from Siskiyon to 
San Diego, is an uninterrupted ocean of verdure, except on the 
high mountains, which at this time of the year are covered with 
snow. Grass from 4 or 5 inches to 2 feet high, has been so for 
several months, and will continue the same until May or June. 
After that time the grasses mature, and there being no more rain, 
and scarcely any dew until October, the grass is cured, remains 
sweet, and is more fattening and strengthening to live stock than 
any artificial feed. “ No hay therefore,” says this gentleman of 
amazing insight and keen perception. Because he did not find hay 
made as in the meadows of old England, abounding in Sweet-scented 
Vernal Grass, there is “ none” here ; which reminds me of my little 
boy, who, when refused any particular food by his mother, assumes 
the most woe-begone and martyr-like expression, saying, “ I haven’t 
anything to eat.” The reason we do not cut the wild Grasses for 
hay is that we can get so much better and more profitable a product 
by sowing a cereal. The best hay is made of Australian or Sonora 
Wheat mixed with one-third of Oats, sown any time during the 
winter months, and cut in May, just when the milk in the kernel 
begins to thicken. Horses fed with this hay require very little else, 
unless working very hard. Three tons to the acre is an average 
yield on valley land. For cattle, or for horses which are not work¬ 
ing, Alfalfa hay is often used. Alfalfa (in England “ Lucerne ”) is 
raised in the whole of Central and Northern California without any 
No. 502.—VoL. XX., Thied Series. 
artificial irrigation whatever, producing three crops of hay in one 
season, and after that serving as green pasturage during the 
remainder of the summer. 
This leads me to another statement of this “ disgruntled ” 
(to use an Americanism which is expressive) M.D.—viz., “a 
country where nothing will grovv except under from four to eight 
hours a day artificial irrigation.” 
I have no land to sell, neither have I any interest in any which 
is for sale. I own 90 acres near Napa, besides leased land for 
my nurseries. I have been growing nursery stock for thirteen 
years, have raised an orchard of over 6000 trees. I sell from 100,000 
to 200,000 fruit trees annually, to say nothing of Grape Vines, 
berries, ornamental stock, &c., and have never had any occasion to 
use any water artificially. 
In the southern interior portion of the State irrigation is necea * 
sarily largely resorted to, for there millions of acres which were 
thought to be almost worthless, are found to be capable of pro¬ 
ducing anything that grows anywhere through the introduction of 
irrigating canals from the melting snows of the Sierras, brought 
down at great expense for many miles into the broad valleys. 
The whole of Central and Northern California, extending for 
hundreds of miles in every direction, is absolutely independent of 
any irrigation other than that which falls from the clouds. Crops 
of Indian Corn, vegetables of every kind. Melons, small fruits, 
orchard fruits—everything, grows to perfection, all that is needed to 
keep the moisture near the surface being a frequent stirring of the 
ground with horse cultivators. 
In the Napa Valley, where I live, there are ten miles of Elmos'}^ 
continuous vineyard several miles wide in places, of the leading 
wine varieties principally. The wines made here are clarets, 
burgundies, sauternes, and all dry wines and brandies, and farther 
south ports and sweet wines are more common. The output of 
the last vintage was about 18,000,000 gallons. At the Paris Expo¬ 
sition California received a large number of awards for her fine 
wines. The Sonoma Valley, west of Napa, is very similar, but 
more extensive. Vaca Valley, to the east a few miles, is one 
unbroken orchard, tens of thousands of acres of the finest varieties 
of Peaches, Apricots, Pears, Plums, Figs, and every other fruit. 
Whole trainloads are sent every day for months of fresh fruit to 
the Eastern States, Chicago being a main distributing centre, but 
we find a ready market 3000 and 3500 miles away by rail. Thou¬ 
sands of tons are sent to the fruit canneries and preserving houses, 
the great bulk, how'ever, being often dried or cured as raisins are 
cured. The Santa Clara Valley, farther south, is a vast region 
with hundreds of thousands of acres of orchards of French Prunes 
Apricots, Pears, &c. The samples of these fruits which I exhibited 
in London last summer were acknowledged to be far superior to 
any European product. And all this, and much more, is but a 
small spot within fifty or sixty miles of San Francisco, and nowhere 
is irrigation resorted to. I will not take up your valuable space by 
enlarging upon the raisin districts, where in Fresno alone are 
350,000 acres of Muscats all made into raisins that equal, if not 
surpass, the best Spanish product ; of the many miles of Orange 
and Lemon groves, of orchards of 500 to 2000 acres in extent, of 
individual vineyards of 10,000 acreage, of Olives, Walnuts, 
Almonds, Figs, and all the temperate and semi-tropical fruits 
known. 
But what a cruel libel to speak of California as lacking in 
flowers ! As a boy in England I took great pleasure in forming an 
herbarium of wild flowers, and made a large collection, but in 
California what a revelation I Here I find scores of carefully 
cherished annuals and biennials in England growing as weeds by 
the acre, the woods abounding in Lilies, and the hills with Azaleas 
and a thousand other choice floral beauties. 
The doctor caught fever and ague in the Sacramento Valley ; 
I caught the hay fever in England last summer, making the first 
two months of my visit far from pleasant. In the river bottoms 
No. 2158. —VOL. LXXXII., Olc Sbhik?. 
