ring the long run of ages; for the soft water-drops 
are chisels in the hand of Time, with which he 
indents the vales, seams the side of the hills, and 
even abrades the granite rocks, and where acces¬ 
sible, lowers the pride of their craggy crowns." 
Strawberry, the Trillium, and various otner smun j 
Bowers, and I am informed that some years flow¬ 
ers are in bloom every month in the twelve — so 
that it can almost be said, 
“ Here everlasting spring abides, 
And'never withering flowers." 
The face of the country is undulating,— made 
up of timbered lands and prairies, the latter largely 
predominating, interspersed with scattering oaks, 
giving them the appearance of old apple orchards 
in the East, The Or tree attains an enormons 
growth, and exceeds anything east ot the Rocky 
Mountains. They reach from two hundred to two 
hundred aud eighty feet in height, and from twenty 
to forty feet in circumference. A spruce in 
Umpqua county measured 2U> feet to its lowest 
A TRIP TO CALIFORNIA. 
Climate of Oregon and Washington Territories milder 
than at Washington City—Jnthorities cited —Summers 
root and delightful—Reasons for the eguable tempera- 
lure of the Pacific Coast—Pace of the Country—Large 
Trees — Forests and' Sate Mills — Mineral Wealth — 
Fumher of Sheep in Oregon—Inducements to Young 
Men to emigrate to this State, and engage extensively 
in Wool Ur Dicing. 
Sacks;, Oregon, March 25, i860. 
Tms place is situated ten miles south of the 
45th parallel. Your readers, however, must not 
infer that it is equally cold with places in the 
same latitude on the Atlantic coast. Snow seldom 
falls in this Valley; and when It does, it remains 
but. a short time. James G. Swax, who has pub¬ 
lished a work entitled “The Northwest Coast, or 
TREATMENT OF CANARY BIRDS, 
Ens. Rural New-Yorker: — To the inquiry 
made by Amelia, of Cayuga, respecting Canary 
Birds, which I noticed in your issue of March 3d, 
I send the following, which Is our method, and I 
think very good: In the first place, we will take 
a pair of young birds. As to the time of pairing, 
it generally commences about the middle or last 
of March, or perhaps a better criterion would be 
when frost disappears, and the suu sheds an en¬ 
livening warmth, l'ut the pair you intend to 
match into a small cage, and although they may 
be quarrelsome at first, they will soon become 
reconciled—which will be known by their feeding 
each other, &c. Feed them at this time with the 
following:—Roll an egg very hard, chop or gvate 
it fine, add bread crumbled equally tine, a little 
maw seed, mix this well and give the A a table¬ 
spoonful twice a day. In ten days they will be 
paired. L’lace the cage in a room where they can 
enjoy the morning-sun, and not where it shines 
hot, in the afternoon, ns excessive heat produces 
sickness. Place in the cago a little fine hay and 
cow’s hair. The nest-boxes, or baskets, should be 
composed of wicker, so that the dust can fall 
through, and there should he but one in the cage 
at a time, or until the hen has hatched; then put 
in another, and make the nest for them. If it 
does not please them, they will soon adapt it to 
their fancy. Wlieu the hen lays, lake the egg 
from her, substituting an ivory or a wooden one. 
The following food must bo given when they have 
young:—Boil an egg, take a piece of bread the 
size of an egg, grate and mix well together, and 
feed them a spoonful three times a day. Cabbage, 
chickwoud and salad may be given in their season, 
(that is, when the bitterness has passed away.) 
The hen sits thirteen or fourteen days. Clean 
the perches, fill one fountain with water, and the 
other with seed, so as not to disturb them tor two 
or three days after hatching. As soon as the 
young ones feed themselves, cage them, feeding 
the same as before stated, addiug ground rape 
seed, until they are seveu weeks old, when they 
will be able to crack bard seed. 
If the hen should be ill, or if she loaves them to 
the care of the male bird, or if she plucks the 
feathers from her young, they should be taken 
from her. In such cases the following paste may 
be given, which will last fifteen days:—Braise a 
quart of rape seed in such a manner that you can 
blow the chaff away; also, apiece of bread, re¬ 
ducing them to a powder,—put it in a dry box 
and keep from the sun- (live a teaspoonful of this 
•STHE IjI’T'TIjK H\A.IRY,” 
TI1E USUAL SIZE AT HER AGE. 
IDOI.LIK DUTTON, 
REC RESENTED IN COMP ARISON WITU A GIRL OK 
loaded, there was great reason to believe tneni 
very productive.” 
Wm. TcPTS, Esq., of Boston, remarks— “I have 
spent eighteen months ou the Pacific coast,—most 
of the time was passed between latitude 64’ to 
57/ While in the latitude of 56“ north, during 
the winter we experienced the coldeBt weather, 
which lasted but a few days, and during that time 
the wind was north-northeast.” 
Swan remarks—“My own experience attests to 
the mildness of the climate, und that mildness is 
to be attributed to the fact mentioned by Cox, 
that the wind blows almost invariably from the 
ocean. Daring the winter months, the wind is 
generally from the south to the northeast, veering, 
at times, to the Bouthwest. These winds, blowing 
from the tropics, bring up the warm southern 
breezes, and kindly temper tho atmosphere, and 
render it mild aud genial. The only severe 
weather is felt when the wind blowB from the 
northeast; but I have neverknown excessive cold 
weather to continue longer than twelve or four¬ 
teen days, when the wind will return to the south, 
and a warm rain brings on a general thaw." 
It is these facts with respect to the climate, 
that make a residence in either Oregon or Wash¬ 
ington Territories, bo desirable; and the remark¬ 
able fact should not be lost sight of, that, although 
Washington Territory is in the Bame latitude as 
Nova Scotia, yet the climate is as mild in winter 
as that of Virginia and Maryland; nor is the heat 
of summer so oppressive as in the same parallel 
east of the Rocky Mountains. In the spring, the 
warm southern breezes lull away, and the cool 
winds from the Arctics, here railed land breezes, 
come down from the nor-th and northeast, and 
kindly temper the heat of summer and render 
it charming and delightful. 
We have multiplied authorities relative to the 
climate of Oregon, in order to disabuse the minds 
PHENOMENA OF RAINDROPS. 
ocean tauk, and hastens into the heart of 
continent to deposit its beneficent harden.” 
relieve them. To distinguish the male Irom the 
female, a streak of bright yellow may be noticed 
over the eyes and under the throat. IDs head is 
wider and longer, his color is much higher, and 
his feet larger. They also begin to warble first, 
which is often at a month old. Frank D. 
Akron, N. Y., 1860. 
“ Looking, then, at water as the great agent of 
fertility, as the chosen element by which the world 
iB kept sappy und verdant, we ask whether tho ar¬ 
rangements made for the regular distribution of 
this fluid are not singularly felicitous? Long ago 
the land would have been totally drained, ami 
every river would have run itself dry, had there 
been any flaw in the machinery by which the 
floods are uplifted from their beds, and restored 
In needful quantities to the soil. But nature’s gi¬ 
gantic water-works are never at fault. Every I 
yoar whole lakes arc hoisted into the atmosphere, 
and lowered with such exquisite precision that 
the seed-time and harvest, the former rain and the 
latter rain, are certain to arrive in due succes¬ 
sion. The sea is ever laboring lor tho land- 
Tbe traffic between the billow aud the furrow is 
conducted by the ministry of the clouds. Pleas- 
Phenomena of Raindrops. We all Bee the pro¬ 
cess, hut at the same time it is very complex—or, 
as the writer says,— ‘‘viewed as a great appara¬ 
tus for pumping up water and sprinkling the sur¬ 
face of the planet, it is impossible to conceive of 
a happier or more effective contrivance.” But 
how otherwise would it be done? 
“To dig a long canal for the purpose of convey¬ 
ing water from the nearest stream, and then to fur¬ 
row his fields with innumerable little channels for 
Its distribution, would be as tedious and elaborate 
a process as it would be to plow up all the corn 
fields of Great Britain with pen knives, or reap 
them with scissors. It would he ridiculous to 
think of moistening his acres by rneanB of water¬ 
ing carts, and insane to attempt it by any other 
mechanical process. IF the whole population of 
England were converted into drawers of water 
and workers of pumps, they would scarce suffice 
to souse a single county and maintain it in a state 
WORKING OUT, 
There is an idea prevalent (among hoys espe¬ 
cially) that there is an honor somewhere connected 
with working out. That to be one’s own “boss,” 
to be dependent on one’s self, is particularly de¬ 
sirable. How often do we see them fret under the 
restraints that kind parents have placed around 
their waywardness, and long to be away, their own 
musters, upon the sea of lile, like a ship tied to its 
moorings with a fine breeze filling every sail. 
No, boys, do not be too anxious to leave your 
parents. You will never find anything earthly to 
fill the vacancy. The kiud love and gentle fore- 
beuranoe of yonr sister will modify the rougher 
dements of your nature. You cannot find among 
strangers one who will fill the place of a dear 
brother; and when the heart is filled with sorrow 
j and the tears course down the cheek, who can 
wipe them best away and heal the aching wounds? 
None can bear with yonr errors like those that 
love you. None can appreciate your virtues like 
your friends. Yon, whom necessity compels not, 
beware how you leave good homes. 
East Yarick, N. Y., I860. Wh.ltk Wakkman. 
Reckoning the mean annual evaporation all over 
the globe at 35 inches, it has been computed that 
the total quantity of water poured into the air 
would fill a cistern ninety-four thousand four hun¬ 
dred and fifty cubic miles in capacity. This esti¬ 
mate, however, founded upon Dalton’s data, is as¬ 
suredly too low, for the mean annual issue of ram 
from the clouds all over the earth is now calculated 
at five feet. 
“But, secondly, the simple rise and fall of these 
exhalations on the spot where produced, would 
do nothing for our impatient farmer in the inte¬ 
rior. The aqueous particles must be conveyed 
from the seas, and set down at his very threshold. 
For this purpose the atmosphere is traversed by 
winds which load themselves with moisture, and 
hurry it off in various directions. A ship freight¬ 
ing itself with merchandise at a foreign wharf, a 
train starting with luggage from a railway-station, 
a water-cart filling with liquid at some reservoir, 
is not more explicit in its mission than the cur¬ 
rent of air which takes in a cargo of vapor at a 
Power of Thought in Animals. —Do animals 
possess the power of thought or reasonlug? If 
you, or some of your readers will answer this 
question through the Rural, you will greatly 
oblige—A Young RurALiST, Coventryville, I860. 
Every drop of perspiration brought to the 
brow by labor is the shadow of a dollar earned. 
