It is the market grape here. Trees have not grown to a great
size on the tule lands, but bees are very fond of the wild-flowers which
abound in the unreclaimed marshes, and, having no hollow trees to build
in, they adapt themselves to circumstances by constructing their hives on
the outside or circumference of trees.

[Illustration: MOUNT HOOD, OREGON.]

Fencing costs here about three hundred and twenty dollars per mile. The
redwood posts are driven into the ground with mauls. Farm laborers receive
in the tules thirty dollars per month and board if they are white men, but
one dollar a day and feed themselves, where they are Chinese.

On Twitchell Island I found an experiment making in ramie and jute, Mr.
Finch, formerly of Haywards, having already planted twenty-six acres of
ramie, and intending to put seven acres into jute, for which he had the
plants all ready, raised in a canvas-covered inclosure. He raised ramie
successfully last year, and sold, he told me, from one-tenth of an acre,
two hundred and sixty three pounds of prepared ramie, for fifteen cents
per pound. He used, to dress it, a machine made in California, which
several persons have assured me works well and cheaply, a fact which ramie
growers in Louisiana may like to know; for the chief obstacle to ramie
culture in this country has been, so far, the lack of a cheap and
rapidly-working machine for its preparation. It struck me that Mr. Finch's
experiment with ramie and jute would promise better were it not made on
new land from which I believe only one crop had been taken.

When these tule lands have been diked and drained, they are sold for from
twenty to twenty-five dollars per acre. Considering the crops they bear,
and their nearness to market--ships could load at almost any of the
islands--I suppose the price is not high; but a farmer ought to be sure
that the levees are high enough, and properly made. To levee them costs
variously, from three to twelve dollars per acre.

The tule lands which lie on the main-land, and which are equally rich with
the islands, are usually ditched and diked for less than six dollars per
acre; and this sum is regarded, I believe, by the State Commissioners
as the maximum which the owners are allowed to borrow on reclamation
land-bonds for the purpose of levee building.

I spoke awhile back of the existence of beavers in the tule country. Elk
and grizzly bears used also to abound here, and I am told that on the
unrecl