es all are silent.

BENJAMIN FAY MILLS.

JULY 1.

VINTAGE IN THE GOLDEN LAND.

O fruit of changeless, ever-changing beauty!
Heavy with summer and the gift of love--
Caressingly I gather and lay you down;
Ensilvered as with dew, the innocent bloom
Of quiet days, yet thrilling with the warmth
Of life--tumultuous blood o' the earth!
The vital sap, the honey-laden juice
Dripping with ripeness, yields to murmuring bee
A pleasant burden; and the meadow-lark
With slow, voluptuous beak the nectar drinks
From the pierced purple.

* * * * *

How good it is, to sense the vineyard life!
To touch the fresh-veined leaves, the straggling stems,
The heavy boughs that bend along the ground;
And like a gay Bacchante, pluck the fruit
And taste the imperial flavors, beauty-wild
And singing child-songs with the bee and bird,
Deep in the vineyard's heart, 'neath the open sky--
Wide, wide, and blue, filled with sun-flooded space
And the silent song of the ripening of days!--
Eternal symbol of the bearing earth--
Harvest and vintage.

RUBY ARCHER.

JULY 2.

Whatever you believe when you are alone at night with the little imp
of conscience seated on the bedpost and whispering to you what to do,
whatever you believe to be best for yourself and best for your city at
that time, you do that thing and you won't be far wrong.

ANDREW FURUSETH.

JULY 3.

Above an elevation of four thousand feet timber is quite abundant.
Along the river-bottoms and low grounds the sycamore is found as
clean-limbed, tall and stately as elsewhere. The cottonwood, too, is
common, though generally dwarfed, scraggy and full of dead limbs. A
willow still more scraggy, and having many limbs destroyed with
mistletoe, is often found in the same places. The elder rises above
the dignity of a shrub, or under-shrub, but can hardly be found a
respectable tree. Two varieties of oak are common, and the alder forms
here a fine tree along the higher water-courses.

T.S. VAN DYKE,
in _Southern California._

JULY 4.

A WESTERN FOURTH.

Here, where Peralta's cattle used to stray;
Here, where the Spaniards in their early day
Rode, jingling, booted, spurred, nor ever guessed
Our race would own the land by them possessed;
Here, where Castilian bull-fights left their stain
Of blood upon the soil of this New Spain;
Here, where old live-oaks, spared t