Chapter II: Part 2

Lumber cost a dollar and a half a foot, but carpenters would not build houses when they could make fifty dollars a day by mining. As there was no lumber for the cabin floors, the ground was beaten hard and really made a good floor. In Placerville the houses were built along the bed of a ravine, and in sweeping these earthen floors some one saw gold-dust glittering, and found that rich diggings were under foot. Thereupon many of the miners dug up their cabin floors, and one man took about twenty thousand dollars in nuggets and gold-dust from the small space his cabin covered.

Very few women and children came to the mines in early days, and the first white woman to arrive in a camp had all sorts of attentions. Sometimes the town was named for the woman first in the place as Sarahsville and Marietta. If a lady visited a mining-camp, the men far and near would drop work and come in just to look at the visitor. One lady, who sang for the miners on her arrival in their town, was given about five hundred dollars' worth of gold-dust.

A child was a great curiosity, and any pretty little girl was sure to have a collection of nuggets or a quantity of gold-dust presented to her. The theatre and circus companies who visited mining-camps soon found out that a little child who could sing or dance was a great attraction. The miners used to throw a shower of money or nuggets at the feet of such little favorites as we throw flowers now.

As there were no women living here for some time, the men having left their families at home in the Eastern states, miners had to wash and cook and make bread for themselves. Men who had been lawyers or ministers at home, when there was no one else to do such things, washed their dishes or their red flannel shirts. On Sunday no one worked at mining, and the men baked bread and cleaned house, and Sunday afternoons they dried, patched, and mended their clothes. If a minister was in town, he held services on a hillside, or in the dining room of some shanty called a hotel, and all the camp came to hear him speak, or sang the hymns with him.

So the miners lived and worked and wandered along rivers and rough mountain trails on the west side of the Sierras, gathering up gold washed down by mountain streams. These Argonauts, or gold-seekers of fifty years ago, are almost all dead now, but the treasures they found made California known throughout the world. Their golden harvest has made the state richer than they found it, for they used the wealth to build cities, to cultivate farming-lands, and to plant orchards and vineyards where the mining-camps used to be.

HOW POLLY ELLIOTT CAME ACROSS THE PLAINS

This is the story of a little girl who in 1849 rode all the way from Ohio to California in an emigrant wagon. Polly Elliott has grandchildren of her own now, but she remembers very well the spring morning when her father came home and said to her mother, "Lizzie, can you get ready to start for the land of gold next week?" She hears again her mother saying, "Oh, John, with all these little children?" She says her father answered by swinging her, the eleven-year-old Polly, up to his shoulder and calling out, "Here's papa's little woman; she'll help you take care of them," as he carried her round the room, laughing.

This was "back East," as Polly Elliott, now Mrs. Davis, says,--in Ohio, where they had a pretty white house set round with apple and peach orchards all white and pink that May day. Her mother cried because they must leave the house, and because they had to sell all their furniture and the stock except Daisy, the pet cow, and Buck and Bright, the oxen, who were to draw the wagon. A round-topped cover of white cloth was fixed on the big farm-wagon. Then they piled into it their bedding in calico covers, a chest or two holding clothes and household goods, a few dishes and cooking things, and plenty of flour, corn meal, beans, bacon, dried apples and peaches, tied up in sacks.

Polly says she supposed the trip would just be one long picnic, while the four children thought it fine fun to "sit on mother's featherbed and go riding," as they said. So they started off for California. A long, long ride these emigrants had before them; a weary trip, plodding along day after day with the patient oxen walking slowly and the burning sun or pelting rain beating down on the wagon cover. There was a train of other wagons with them, some pulled by horses but more by yoked oxen, and the men walked beside the animals and cracked long whips. A few men were on horseback, but all kept together, for Indians were plenty and were often hiding near the road, watching for a chance to cut off and capture any wagons lagging behind the party.

Day after day, Polly told me, they travelled westward to the setting sun. They left the orchards and shady woods of Ohio and Indiana far behind them, and crossed the wide prairies of Illinois and Missouri also. When they came to rivers they drove through shallow fording-places, where Polly and the children used to laugh to see the little fishes swimming round the wagon wheels. Sometimes the rivers were deep, and the wagons were ferried over on a flatboat that was fastened to a wire rope, while oxen and horses swam through the water behind them. If it did not rain, the children and all were happy, and it did seem like a picnic. But Polly says she never hears the rain pouring nowadays as it did then, and that there were many times when they were wet and cold and miserable, and because the wood and ground were wet they could not even have a fire.

At night the teams were unhitched and the wagons left in a circle round a big camp-fire, where supper was cooked. Polly says her mother used to bake biscuits in an iron spider with red-hot coals heaped on its iron cover, and these biscuits with fried bacon and tea made their meal. They always cooked a big potful of corn-meal mush for the children, and this, with Daisy's milk and a little maple sugar or molasses, was supper and breakfast too. Then the women and children cuddled up in the wagons for the night, while men slept, wrapped in blankets, around the camp-fire or under the wagons, with one always on guard against danger from prowling Indians or wolves.

Every man or boy carried a rifle or shotgun, and killed plenty of game. Deer and antelope were always in sight after they crossed the Missouri River, and the meat was broiled or roasted over the coals of their campfire. Wild turkeys and prairie-chicken tasted much better than bacon, Polly said, and she learned to cook them herself.

When the emigrants reached Nebraska, they were in the "buffalo country," and great herds of big, shaggy, brown or black buffaloes were feeding on the grassy plains. The animals were larger than oxen, and the Indians depended upon the flesh for food and the thick, warm skins for robes or blankets. The emigrants shot thousands of buffalo cows and calves, and what meat could not be eaten at once was cut into long strips and hung in the sun or over the fire to dry. This was called "jerking" the meat. On jerked buffalo or venison and flour pancakes many emigrants lived all the way across. Game was so plenty and so easy to shoot, that by stopping a few days, a good stock of meat could be laid in while the oxen were resting. So they travelled through Nebraska, and for weeks and weeks saw nothing but long grass waving in the summer winds, and yellow sunflowers--miles and miles of sunflowers. Polly grew very tired of the hot sun blazing down on the close-covered wagon, and of the dust raised by the long wagon-train.

About this time she remembers that her father bought her a little Indian pony, and from that happy day the child rode beside the wagon, and could keep out of the dusty trail, or ride a little way off on the prairie, if she liked. The pony carried double very well, so a small sister or brother was often lifted on behind for a ride. One night the Indians, who were always prowling round and coming as near the wagon-train as they dared, frightened the horses and got away with ten of them. All the women and children cried, Polly says, for they were afraid the redskins would come back and kill them. In the morning Polly's father and some of the men found the Indians' trail and tracked them to a wooded cañon. The hungry thieves had killed one horse and were so busy feasting on it that the white men surprised them and shot all the Indians but two or three. The lost horses and Polly's pony whinnied to their masters from a thicket, where they were tied, and were taken back to camp.

On and on over the great plains of Wyoming the wagons carried these emigrants. Many found the trip grow tiresome, while the oxen and mules would often lie down in their traces and refuse to go any farther. A few days' rest, and the rich bunch-grass to crop soon set the stock all right, and the white-topped wagons crawled ahead again. Soon the emigrants saw blue, hazy mountains, far off at first, then nearer and nearer, till at last their road led through a pass between the peaks.

Then Polly remembers riding through Utah, with its queer red cliffs and high rocks carved in strange shapes by winds and weather; the stretches of sandy desert; and beyond those, grassy meadows and streams fringed with green willows. After a while Great Salt Lake lay sparkling in the sun and looking cool and blue. All around it were alkali deserts or wide plains, hot and dusty and white with salt or soda. The "prairie schooners," with their covers faded and burnt by the sun, went very slowly over these desert wastes, Polly thought, and Nevada, with its dusty gray sage-brush land on either side of the road, seemed not much better.

"Papa's little woman" had her hands full now; for her mother was so ill she seldom left the wagon. All the cooking fell to Polly's share, and then she would ride along for hours with a little sister on her lap and fat brother "Bub" behind her on the saddle-blanket, so that her mother might rest and be quiet.

But soon the clear green Truckee River ran foaming and fretting beside the road, and off in the west rose the snowy peaks of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Then the people began to laugh and to sing, for they knew that California, the land of gold, was almost in sight and that their weary journey was nearly ended.

And one day they said joyfully to each other, "We are in California at last;" and it was a happy company that travelled down through the pines of the mountain sides and the oak trees of the foot-hills. Many emigrants left the train when they got to the great Sacramento River valley, and settled here and there to farming. Polly's father with others kept on to the gold-diggings and camped there. He built a log-cabin soon, for it was almost winter and time for the rains, and Polly says she was glad to have a house at last. They finally took up farming land near what is now Stockton, as gold-mining did not pay.

Mrs. Davis, who is straight and strong, and still a hard worker, says her five months' trip across the plains was almost like a long picnic after all, for she has forgotten many of the trying and disagreeable things.

THE BUILDING OF THE OVERLAND RAILROAD

The army of emigrants and gold-hunters who crossed the plains to California found it was a long and tiresome trip by wagon-train or on horseback. The oxen or mules would sometimes get so tired that they could go no farther; and because the food often ran short, there was much suffering from hunger.

The longest way of all to California was by sailing vessel from New York round Cape Horn, nearly nineteen thousand miles to San Francisco. The passengers paid high prices and were six months on the way. Those who came by the Panama route had trouble crossing the isthmus, where it was so hot and unhealthy that many died of fevers and cholera. The Pacific mail steamers connecting with a railroad across the isthmus at last shortened the time of this trip of six thousand miles to twenty-five days. For ten years all the Eastern mail came this way twice a month.

It was thought a wonderful thing when the "pony express" carried mail twice a week between St. Joseph, Missouri, where the Eastern railroads ended, and Sacramento. To do this a rider, with the mail-bag slung over his shoulder, rode a horse twenty-four miles to the next station, where a fresh pony was ready. Hardly waiting to eat or sleep, the rider galloped on again. Five dollars was often charged at that time to bring the letter railroads carry now for two cents.

So you will see that a railroad to join California to the Eastern states was a great necessity and had often been talked of. Several ways to bring the iron horse puffing across the plains and up the mountains with his long train of cars had been laid out on paper. The emigrants had found that the best highway from the Missouri River to California was to keep along the Platte River in Nebraska to Fort Laramie and the South Pass of the Rocky Mountains, then by Salt Lake, and along the Humboldt and Truckee rivers, crossing the Sierras at Donner Pass. Other roads were talked of, and Senator Benton of Missouri favored a nearly straight line between St. Louis and San Francisco. Some one, in objecting to this, said that only engineers could lay out a railroad, and such men did not believe a straight line possible. The senator answered: "There are engineers who never learned in school the shortest and straightest way to go, and those are the buffalo, deer, bear, and antelope, the wild animals who always find the right path to the lowest passes in the mountains, to rich pastures and salt springs, and to the shallow fords in the rivers. The Indians follow the buffalo's path, and so does the white man for game to shoot. Then the white man builds a wagon-road and at last his railroad, on the trail the buffalo first laid out."

For two or three years surveyors and explorers tried to find the easiest way to build this great overland road. Several railroad acts or bills were passed by Congress, and the California Legislature gave the United States the right of way for a road to join the two oceans.

The first railway in the state was opened in '56 from Sacramento to Folsom, a distance of twenty-two miles. This was built by T.D. Judah, an engineer who had thought and studied a great deal about the overland road so much needed to bring mail and passengers quickly from East to West.

A railroad convention, made up of men from the Pacific states and territories, was held in San Francisco in '59, with General John Bidwell, a pathfinder of early days, as the chairman. Here Mr. Judah gave such a clear and full account of the central way he had planned, that the convention sent him to Washington, D.C., to see the President, and to try to get Congress to pass a Pacific Railroad Bill. He had very little help in the East, but at last four men of Sacramento, Leland Stanford, C.P. Huntington, Mark Hopkins, and Charles Crocker, took an interest in Judah's plans, and in '61 the Central Pacific Railroad Company was formed. Mr. Judah went back to the mountains and studied the pines in summer and the winter snowbanks, to make sure of the easiest grades and the shortest and best way for the track-layers. He found that to follow the Truckee River from near Lake Donner to the Humboldt Desert, would mean the least work. The tunnels would be through rock, and he believed that snow might easily be kept off the track with a snow-plough.

His report pleased the company, and they sent him again to present the case at Washington. In '62 President Lincoln signed an act or bill to allow the Union and Central Pacific companies to build a railroad and a telegraph line from the Missouri River to the Pacific. In California the land for fifteen miles on each side of the way laid out was given to the railroad company, and two years was allowed them to build the first hundred miles of track.

Ground was broken for the Central Pacific the next year in Sacramento, and Governor Stanford dug up the first shovelful of earth. Then the work went steadily on, but it was hard to raise money. Stanford and his company carried the line forward as fast as possible. More land-grants were given, which doubled the company's holdings, and in '65 the road was fifty-five miles past Sacramento and had climbed over much difficult work.

The steamship owners, the express and stage companies were all against the railroad, and tried in every way to make people think that an engine could never cross the Sierras. Yet the grading went on, while an army of five thousand men and six hundred horses was at work cutting down trees and hills and filling up the low places. A bridge was built over the American River, and slowly but surely the track climbed the steep mountain-sides. Most of the laborers were Chinese, as white men found mining or farming paid them better.

In '67 the iron horse had not only climbed the mountains but had reached the state line, and the Union Pacific, which had been laying its tracks over the plains of the Platte River, began to hasten westward. The two railroads were racing to meet each other, and the Central sometimes laid ten miles of rails in one day.

Ogden was made the meeting-point, though at Promontory, fifty miles west of Ogden, the last spike was driven. A thousand people met at that place in May, '69, to see the short space of track closed and the road finished. A Central train and locomotive from the Pacific came steaming up, and an engine and cars from the Atlantic pulled in on the other side. Both engines whistled till the snow-capped mountains echoed. The last tie was of polished California laurel wood, with a silver plate on which the names of the two companies and their officers were engraved. It was put under the last two rails, and all was fastened together with the last spike. This spike, made of solid gold, Governor Stanford hammered into place with a silver hammer. East and west the news was flashed over the long telegraph line, that the overland railroad had been finished and that two oceans were joined by iron rails.

Now, while flying along in the cars so fast that the trip from Chicago to San Francisco takes but three days, it is hard to believe that little more than thirty years ago travellers in the slow-moving "prairie-schooner" took over five months to cover this same distance.

STORY OF THE WHEAT FIELDS

The Spanish Padres, as the Mission priests were called, taught the Indians to plough and seed with wheat the lands belonging to the church or Mission. They used a simple wooden plough, which oxen pulled. When the warm brown earth was turned up, the Indians broke the clods by dragging great tree branches over them. After the fall rains they scattered tiny wheat kernels and covered them snugly for their nap in the dark ground.

More rain fell, and soon the soaked seeds waked, and started in slender green shoots to find the sunshine, and day by day the stalks grew stronger and the fields greener. Higher and ever higher sprang the wheat, till summer winds set the tall grain waving in a sea of green billows. Have you ever watched the wind blow across a wheat-field? Over and over the long rollers bend the tops of the grain, that rise as the breeze goes on and bend low again at the next breath of wind.

When the hot sun had ripened the grain, and all round the white-walled, red-roofed Mission the fields stretched golden and ready for harvest, the Indians cut the wheat, and scattering the bundles over a spot of hard ground, drove oxen round and round on the sheaves till the wheat was threshed out from the straw. Then Indian women winnowed out the chaff and dirt by tossing the grain up in the wind, or from basket to basket, till in this slow way the yellow kernels were made clean and ready to grind.

A curious mill, called an arrastra, ground the grain between two heavy stones. A wooden beam was fastened to the upper stone, and oxen or a mule hitched to this beam turned the stone as they walked round. The first flour-mill worked by water was put up at San Gabriel Mission, and it was thought a wonderful thing indeed.

Even in those early days California wheat was known to be excellent, and many ships came on the South Sea, as they then called the Pacific Ocean, to load with grain for Mexico or Boston or England. Since that time our state has fed countless people, and over a million acres of valley and hill lands are green and golden every year with food for the world. To Europe, to the swarming people of China, Japan, and India, to South Africa and Australia, our grain is carried in great ships and steamers, and hungry nations in many lands look to us for bread.

For a long time after the Mission days, all the grain had to be hauled to the rivers or sea-coast for shipping. Then the overland railroad was finished, and within the next fifteen years an additional two thousand miles of railways were built in California, and nearly every mile opened up rich wheat land that had never been cultivated. Soon great wheat ranches stretched far over the dry, hot valley plains.

The ground is ploughed and seeded after November rains, and all winter the tender blades of grain grow greener and stronger day by day March and April rains strengthen the crop wonderfully, and June and July bring the harvest-time. As no rain falls then, the ripe wheat stands in the field till cut, and afterward in sacks without harm. All the work except ploughing is done by machinery, and this makes the wheat cost less to raise, since a machine does the work of many men and the expense of running it is small.

Some of the ranches have three or four thousand acres in wheat, and it may interest you to know how such large farms are managed. The ploughing is done by a gang-plough, as it is called, which has four steel ploughshares that turn up the ground ten inches deep. Eight horses draw this, and as a seeder is fastened to the plough, and back of the plough a harrow, the horses plough, seed, harrow, and cover up the grain at one time. There the seed-wheat lies tucked up in its warm brown bed till rain and sunshine call out the tiny green spears, and coax them higher and stronger, and the hot sun of June and July ripens the precious grain.

Then a great machine called a "header and thresher" is driven into the field and sweeps through miles and miles of bending grain, cutting swaths as wide as a street, and harvesting, threshing, and leaving a long trail of sacked wheat ready to ship on the cars. Thirty-six horses draw the header, and five or six men are needed to attend to this giant, who bites off the grain, shakes out the kernels, throws them into sacks and sews them up, all in one breath, as you might say. The harvesters work from daylight to dusk, and three-fourths of our wheat crop is gathered in this way.

Much golden straw is left, besides that which the "headers" burn as fuel, and farmers stack this straw for cattle to nibble at. The stock feed in the stubble fields, too, and strange visitors also come to these ranches to pick up the scattered grains of wheat. These strangers are wild white geese, in such large flocks that when feeding they look like snow patches on the ground. They eat so much that often they cannot fly and may be knocked over with clubs. In the spring these geese must be driven away by watchmen with shot-guns to keep them from pulling up the young grain.

The largest single wheat-field in California is on the banks of the San Joaquin River, in Madera County. This covers twenty-five thousand acres and is almost as flat as a floor. It is nearly a perfect square in shape, and each side of the square is a little over six miles long. There are no roads through this solid stretch of grain. Two hundred men, a thousand horses, and many big machines are needed to work this wheat-field.

Some of the big harvesters that cut and thresh the wheat are drawn by a traction-engine instead of horses. In running a fifty-horse-power engine high-priced coal had to be burnt but now the coal grates are replaced by petroleum burners, and crude coal-oil is the cheap fuel. This does not make sparks to set the fields on fire like burning coal or straw and so is safer to use.

On large ranches wheat can be grown for less than a cent a pound, while it has brought two cents or double the money when sold. But there are not always good crops, as the grain needs plenty of moisture in the spring when rains are uncertain.

The wheat crop of the state has fallen off of late to less than half the yield of earlier years, but the deep, rich valley soil still grows grain enough to feed hungry people in Europe, Asia, and Africa, as well as in our own Union. Great quantities are taken in large four-masted ships to Liverpool, England, and there made into American flour. Our own flour-mills turn out thousands of barrels of flour, and this travels far, too. The first thing picked up in Manila after Admiral Dewey's victory was a flour sack with a California mill mark.

It would need a long, long story to tell how far from home and into what strange places the yellow kernels of California wheat sometimes travel, or to picture the odd people who depend upon us for food.

ORCHARD, FARM, AND VINEYARD

Long ago the Mission Fathers taught the Indians to plant and to take care of vines and fruit-trees. They built water-works to bring life to the thirsty trees in the dry summers, and to grow oranges, limes, and figs, as well as peaches, apricots, and apples. They trained grape-vines over arbors and trellises round the Mission buildings, and from the small, black grapes made wine. Olive trees and date-palms did well at the southern settlements. But most of these orchards died when the Mission Fathers were no longer allowed to make the Indians work for the church property, though a few old palms and olive trees are still standing.

During Mexican days each ranch owner raised enough grain or corn and beans for his own family but planted no fruit, or but little, while the Americans who came to seek gold thought farming a slow way of making a living. People soon found out, however, that our fine climate and rich soil made good crops almost certain, and there was such demand for fruit and farm products that more and more acres were cultivated each year.

Our leading industry now is farming and fruit-growing, and California's delicious fresh or cured fruit is sent all over the world. Large amounts of barley and hops are shipped from here to Europe, and our state produces almost all the Lima beans used in the country.

The citrus fruits, as oranges, lemons, and pomelos, or "grape-fruit," are called, grow in the seven southern counties, or in the foothills on the western slope of the Sierras. The trees cannot endure frost and must be irrigated in the summer. Orange trees are a pretty sight, with their shining green leaves, white, sweet-smelling flowers, and the green or golden fruit. About Christmas-time, when oranges ripen, both blossoms and fruit may be picked from the same tree. Los Angeles and Orange County grow most oranges, but San Diego is first in lemon culture. Half a million trees in that county show the bright yellow fruit and fragrant blossoms every month in the year. The other southern counties also raise lemons by the car-load to send east, or for your lemonade and lemon pies at home.

There, too, the olive grows well, that little plum-shaped fruit you usually see as a green, salt pickle on the table. The Mission Fathers brought this tree first from Spain, where the poor people live upon black bread and olives. Olives are picked while green and put in a strong brine of salt and water to preserve them for eating. Dark purple ripe olives are also very good prepared the same way. Did you know that olive-oil is pressed out of ripe olives? The best oil comes from the first crushing, and the pulp is afterwards heated, when a second quality of oil is obtained. Olive trees grow very slowly, and do not fruit for seven years after they are planted. But they live a hundred years, and bear more olives every season.

The black or purple fig which grew in the old Mission gardens bears fruit everywhere in the state. Either fresh and ripe, or pressed flat and dried, it is delicious and healthful. White figs like those from abroad have been raised the last few years, and it is hoped in time to produce Smyrna figs equal to the imported.

While peach orchards blossom and bear fruit six months of the year in the south, most of this pretty pink-cheeked fruit grows in the great valleys, or along the Sacramento River. Pears also show their snowy blossoms and yellow fruit in the valleys and farther north. The Bartlett pear is sent to all the Eastern states in cold storage cars kept cool by ice, and also to Europe.

The finest apricots are those of that wonderful southern country, miles and miles of orchards lying round Fresno especially. Yet the valleys and foot-hills produce plenty, and in the old mining counties very choice fruit ripens. Apples like the high mountain valleys, where they get a touch of frost in winter, though there is a cool section of San Diego County where fine ones are raised. Cherries do well in the middle and valley regions, the earliest coming from Vacaville, in Solano County.

Grapes grow throughout the state, though the famous raisin vineyards, where thousands of tons are dried every year, are around Fresno. Most of the raisins are dried in the sun, but in one factory a hundred tons of grapes may be dried at one time by steam. The raisins are seeded by machinery, and packed in pretty boxes to send all over the coast, and through the states, where once only foreign raisins were used. Many vineyards in the southern part and middle of the state grow only wine grapes, California wines, champagne, and brandy having a wide use.

Great quantities of fresh fruits are used in the state or sent away, while the canneries put up immense amounts, also. Canned fruit reaches many consumers, but it is expensive. Our cured or dried fruit, however is so cheap and so good that millions of pounds are prepared every year. Such fruit ripens on the tree and so keeps all its fine flavor. It is then dried in the sunshine, which not only fits it for long keeping but turns part of it to sugar. Apricots, peaches, pears, and cherries are usually cut in halves or stoned before drying. Prunes are first on the list of cured fruits, and they seem the best to use as food. The ripe prunes are dipped into a boiling lye to make the skin tender, then rinsed and spread in the sun a day or two. They are then allowed to "sweat" to get a good color, are next dipped in boiling water a minute or two, dried, and finally graded, a certain number to the pound, and packed in boxes or sacks.

Several kinds of nuts grow well in the state. All the so-called "English" walnuts, with their thin shells, are raised in the south, Orange County furnishing half the amount we market. Peanuts and almonds are a good crop there, also, though almond groves are in all parts of the state. Both paper and thick-shelled almonds are usually bleached, or whitened, with sulphur smoke to improve their color.

Santa Barbara and Ventura are the bean counties of the state, and send Lima beans away by train-loads, while Orange County grows celery for the Eastern market. Very high prices are received for this celery and other vegetables sent from California during the winter season when fields are covered with snow in the East.

And did you know that the state produces a great deal of sugar? Tons and tons of sugar-beets are grown throughout the farming lands, and harvested in September. When the juice of these crushed beets is boiled and refined, it makes a sugar exactly like cane sugar and much cheaper. One-fifth of the beet is sugar, it is said.

Even the dry, worthless mountain sides are valuable to the bee-keeper. The bees make a delicious honey from the wild, white sage, which grows where nothing else will live. This sage honey brings the very highest price.

Oats are raised in the coast counties, and corn in the valleys, but owing to cool nights and dry air the corn seldom makes a good crop. Orange County, however, claims corn with stalks twenty feet high and a hundred bushels to the acre. In the south, also, that wonderful forage-plant, alfalfa, will produce six crops a year by irrigation and give a ton or more to the acre at each cutting.

Along the upper Sacramento River stretch the great hop-fields full of tall vines covered with light-green tassels. At hop-picking season many families have a month's picnic, children and all working day after day in the fields and pulling off the fragrant hops. Indians, too, are among the best hop-pickers. The dried hops are bleached with sulphur, baled, and in great quantities sent to Liverpool, where with California barley they are used in brewing malt liquors.

An odd crop is mustard, and at Lompoc, in Santa Barbara County, enough for the whole country is grown. Both brown and yellow mustard is cultivated, and the little seeds, almost as fine as gunpowder, are sold to spice-mills and pickle-factories.

Whole farms are taken up with the production of flower-seeds or bulbs, with acres and acres of calla-lilies, roses, carnations, and violets. The tall pampas-grass, with its long feathery plumes, gives a profitable crop. Indeed, one can scarcely name a fruit, flower, or tree that will not thrive and grow to perfection in our mild climate and rich soil.

THE STORY OF THE NAVEL ORANGE

Who has not enjoyed a juicy navel orange, while wondering at its peculiar shape and lack of troublesome seeds? Yet few people know that this particular variety has brought millions of dollars into our state and made orange growing our third greatest industry.

Read this story of the seedless orange, this "golden apple of California," which was first cultivated by Luther Tibbets, of Riverside, and learn how Southern California has profited by its navel orange crops.

Nearly thirty years ago Mr. Tibbets came from New York to this state and took up free government land near what is now the beautiful city of Riverside. He was one of the half-dozen pioneer fruit-growers of that region, and had noticed at the San Gabriel Mission how well orange trees grew there. His wife and daughter waited in Washington, D.C., until a home should be ready here for them, and they often sent Mr. Tibbets plants and seeds from the Department of Agriculture. To this Department and its gardens in Washington, many curious plants are forwarded from other countries for growing and experiment in the United States. New kinds of grain or fruits are carefully cultivated and watched by the Department, and from it farmers can always get seeds or cuttings to try on their own farms.

Mrs. Tibbets often visited the Department gardens, and in 1873 she wrote to her husband that she could get him some fine orange trees if he would promise the government to take great care of them and to keep them apart from other trees till they fruited. Of course he agreed to give them special attention, and therefore that December he received three small, rooted orange trees. A cow chewed up one of these, but for five years the others were watched and tended. Then sweet white blossoms appeared on each little tree, and afterwards two oranges, like hard green bullets at first. Finally, in January, 1879, Mr. Tibbets picked four large, well-flavored, golden oranges, the first seedless ones ever grown outside of Brazil.

From the hot swamps of the tropical country at Bahia the United States Consul had sent six cuttings of this peculiar orange to be planted in the Washington gardens. All died but the two at Riverside. In 1880 they bore half a bushel of fruit, and the new seedless oranges were talked of throughout Southern California. The other orange growers had been cultivating "seedlings," trees which bore smaller fruit, with many bitter seeds and a thick skin. Many of these growers now cut back their seedlings to bare limbs, and grafted the new orange on these branches. This is called "budding," and is done by cutting off a thin slip of bark with a tiny folded-up leaf-bud on it, inserting the graft in the branch to be budded and securing it there with wax to keep the air out. The little bud drinks in sap from the tree stem, and grows and blossoms true to its own mother tree.

There were few orange groves then, but soon nearly all were budded to the new kind, seventy-five acres being so changed on the Baldwin Ranch; and when these trees began to bear, some five years afterwards, people were much excited over the seedless fruit.

Such high prices were paid for these oranges at first, that orange growing boomed all over Southern California. People thought their fortunes were made when they set out a few acres of small budded trees they had paid a dollar or more apiece for. Whole towns sprang up in dry treeless valleys where only cattle and sheep had pastured, and land worth only twenty-five dollars an acre before the orange excitement, sold quickly for eight hundred and a thousand when planted with trees. The towns of Pomona, Redlands, Monrovia, and others in the orange localities were unknown before 1885, and grew to several thousand population in a few years. Everybody talked of the great profit in orange growing, and people who had nurseries of young trees grown from navel buds made fortunes.

At this day thousands of acres of seedless oranges are in full bearing and no one buys the old kinds. Hundreds of car-loads of the seedlings are not even picked, and ninety per cent of the eighteen thousand car-loads which make the season's orange crop are navel oranges. Over forty-five millions of dollars are now invested in the growing and marketing of this remarkable fruit.

At Riverside, the home of the orange, the two original Washington navel trees still stand. Mr. Tibbets guarded them for years, had them fenced with high latticework, and seldom allowed any one to touch them. He refused ten thousand dollars for them, since for months he sold hundreds of dollars' worth of buds from these parent trees. These two trees and their large family have caused thousands of people to come to the state, and have built up Southern California wonderfully.

THE LEMON

For many years people who use that sour but necessary fruit, the lemon, thought that only the little yellow ones which came from the far-away island of Sicily were good. The men who import foreign fruits always said so; and in spite of the fact that the larger California lemon was more acid, of as good flavor, smooth skinned, and golden, people believed the Mediterranean groves produced the best. But, at last, our warm, dry air, good soil, and plenty of water, together with care and skill while growing and packing, have made California lemons the most in demand. These lemons keep well, and bear shipping and long journeys better than the imported fruit.

Citrus fruits, as the orange and lemon are called, do well in all the southern counties, and San Diego County boasts of not only the largest lemon grove in California, but in the world. This is a thousand-acre tract overlooking San Diego Bay and cultivated by the Chula Vista colony. It was once a pasture given up to wandering bands of cattle and sheep. There was little water, and no one ever thought these dry mesa lands would one day be a beautiful garden spot, green with the shining lemon leaves, and golden with fruit.

A company was formed to develop this forty-two square miles of land, and to get water for irrigation, since all the trees must have little streams of water round their thirsty roots three or four times during the dry summer. A great dam was constructed on the Sweetwater River, near Chula Vista, and a reservoir built. Water was piped from this to the lemon groves, which are about a hundred feet below the reservoir, and from May to September the trees are irrigated. This is done by ploughing furrows on each side of a row of trees and turning small rills of water slowly down them till the ground is soaked around the tree roots. No one thought the great reservoir would ever be empty, but two winters with but little rain made it necessary to put down many wells in the dry bed of the Sweetwater River, and from these a strong steady flow of millions of gallons is pumped into the water pipes. So this great lemon orchard is always sure of water enough, returning the gift later in generous golden measure.

One may pick lemon blossoms, ripe and green fruit every month in the year from the same tree, but most of the crop ripens from November to June.

Lemons are carefully cut from the tree, and usually picked by size, a ring being slipped over them, without regard to their ripeness. They grow so thick on the tree that a man can pick more than twenty boxes a day. In preparing it for market the fruit "sweats," as it is called, in airy boxes, for a month in winter and ten days in summer, and ripens and colors during this process. Then each lemon is wiped dry and clean, wrapped separately in tissue-paper, and packed for shipment. The cost of a box of lemons from the tree to the railroad is about thirty-five cents.

Thousands of car-loads are shipped to the Eastern and Middle states, while the Pacific Coast is a never-failing market.

Small, imperfect, and bruised fruit goes to the citric acid factory near the packing-houses. From these oil of lemon, lemon sugar, and clear green citric-acid crystals are made, and the crushed waste is returned to the grove and ploughed in about the trees as a fertilizer.

FLOWERS AND PLANTS

"When California was wild," says John Muir, "it was one sweet bee-garden throughout its entire length, and from the snowy Sierra to the ocean."

There were so many yellow poppies in this great unfenced garden, that the Spanish sailing along the coast called it the "Land of Fire" from the golden flowers covering the hills. Near Pasadena, in Southern California, these poppy fields may still be seen glowing so brightly in the sun that you do not wonder at the name "Cape Las Flores," or Flower Cape, which the sailors also gave to this part of the country.

The poppy is our best-known wild flower, planted by Mother Nature before white men ever visited these shores. When the Spanish settled here they called the poppy _copa de oro_, or cup of gold. The gold hunters spoke of it as the California gold flower, and sent the pressed poppies home in their letters. But its correct name is the Eschscholtzia (esh-sholt'si-a), from the name of a German botanist and naturalist, who studied the plant and wrote about it almost a hundred years ago.

From February to May the poppies are most plentiful, but a few may be found almost every month in the year. Have you noticed the finely cut green leaves, and the pointed green nightcap that covers each bud till the morning sunshine coaxes off the cap and unfolds the four satiny golden petals? The flowers love the sun and close up on dark, cloudy days, or if brought into the house. But put them in a sunny window the next morning, and you may watch the cups of gold open to the light.

Some of the poppies are a deep orange-color, while others are a pale yellow. And as you walk through the fields you may pick a hundred at each step, so thick do the plants grow. The wild bees find a yellow dust called pollen or "bee-bread" in the poppy, the same golden powder that rubs off on your nose, when you put it too close to this cup of gold or to lilies.

Then in this "unfenced garden" were also the baby blue-eyes, whose pretty pale-blue blossoms come early in the spring, each one with a drop of honey at the foot of its honey path, as the black lines on its petals are called.

Can you name twenty kinds of wild flowers? Around San Francisco and the bay counties you will count, after the poppy and baby blue-eyes, the shining yellow buttercup, the blue and yellow lupines that grow in the sand, the tall thistle whose sharp, prickly leaves and thorny red blossoms spell "Let-me-alone," the blue flag-lilies and red paint-brush, yellow cream-cups, and wild mustard, and an orange pentstemon. These with many yellow compositæ or flowers like the dandelion, you will find growing on the windy hills and dry, sunny places. Hiding away in quiet corners are the blue-eyed grass, and a wild purple hyacinth, the scarlet columbine swinging its golden tassels, shy blue larkspur, a small yellow sunflower, and wild pink roses. Among the ferns in shady, wet nooks are white trilliums and a delicate pink bleeding-heart, while the wild blue violets and yellow pansies love the warm, rocky hillside.

Mariposas, or butterfly tulips of many colors, grow in the foot-hills and mountains. Perhaps our most beautiful wild flowers are the lilies, of which we have over a dozen kinds. In the redwood forests there is a tall, lovely pink lily, and many brown-spotted yellow tiger-lilies. Up in the mountain pines a snowy white Washington lily sometimes covers a mountain side with its tall stems bearing dozens of sweet waxen blossoms. In the wet, swampy places bright red, and many small orange lilies bloom in late summer.

In the high Sierras are found strange and pretty blossoms unlike the flowers of valleys and sea-coast. There you will see the mountain-heather with pink, purple, or dainty white bells, the goldenrod, and gentians blue as the sky. Strangest of all is the snow-plant. This curious thing sends up a thick, fleshy spike a foot or so in height and set closely with bright scarlet flowers. It grows where the snow has just melted round the fir trees, and leaf, stem, and blossom are all the same glowing red.

Most of the valley and coast wild-flowers bloom and ripen their seeds before the dry summer begins. Such plants die and wither away in the heat, but their seeds are safe on the warm ground till fall rains soak the earth and set them growing again. In the high mountains a thick blanket of snow covers the sleeping seeds till May or June, and then sunshine wakes them once more.

No doubt you have seen many of our shrubs or tall bush-plants in your vacations. Do you remember the sweet creamy white azaleas and the buckeyes that grow along the creeks in the redwoods? And the feathery blue blossoms of the wild lilac crowding in close thickets up the hillsides? One of our shrubs is a holiday visitor, the Christmas-berry, whose bright-red clusters trim your house at that gay, happy season. The manzanita is another pretty bush, with pink bells that ripen to small scarlet apples in the fall.

Usually, these and other shrubs cover the hillsides with a thick, matted tangle of stems and branches almost impossible to get through. This chaparral, as the Spanish called it, clothes the foot-hills and mountain sides with a close growth through which deer and bears alone can travel and make trails or runways. Great stretches of buckthorn in the north, and of sage-brush in the south, cover the wild lands, while in the sandy desert tall, prickly cactus, yucca, and mesquite grow with the sage-brush in the blazing sun.

Only a few of California's wild plants and flowers have been now called to your notice. But children have sharp eyes, and you will find many more to inquire about in your vacation days. Then the blackberries and thimble-berries will be ripe, and the pink salmon-berry in the redwoods. Perhaps you will look for and dig up the soaproot, that onion-like bulb of one of the lily family with which the Indians make a soapy lather to wash their clothes. Let us hope you will know and keep away from the "poison-oak," the low bush with pretty red leaves, for its leaves are apt to make your skin swell up and blister wherever they touch you.

What a long and pleasant story might be told you of our state's real gardens! Perhaps your teacher will give you an hour to talk about your home gardens, and to see how much you can tell about them. You may have flowers the year round, if you live on the coast, or in the warm valleys where no Jack Frost comes with his icy breath to kill the tender plants. In such genial climates roses and geraniums bloom all year, and only rest when the gardener cuts them back; and most of the shrubs and trees in parks and gardens are always fresh and green.

Florists who raise flowers to sell find that here they can grow the choicest and finest carnations, roses, and all the garden blossoms you know so well. Many of these florists deal only in flower-seeds, and bulbs or roots of the lilies to send to the Eastern states or abroad, where people greatly prize California flowers.

Plants and trees from all parts of the world thrive here, also. You have seen the palms, the tall sword-palm with its great spike of snowy bloom in the spring, the fan-palm whose dried and trimmed leaves are really used for fans, and, perhaps, the date-palm. This tree was planted round the Missions by the Padres, and some, more than a hundred years old, are still standing at the San Gabriel Mission. These, and the magnolia with its large creamy blossoms, as well as the graceful pepper-tree, are natives of warm, southern lands, while the eucalyptus, or gum-tree, was brought here from Australia.

Look round, children, as you walk to and from school, or in the park, and try to know and name the green things growing there, the flowers and plants sent to make our world a pleasant place to live in.

THE BIG TREES AND LUMBERING