able Spanish variety, used only as an
appetizer, know little of the value of the best varieties as food,
nutritious as meat, and always delicious. Good bread and a dish of
pickled olives make an excellent meal. A mature olive grove in good
bearing is a fortune. I feel sure that within 25 years this will be one
of the most profitable industries of California, and that the demand for
pure oil and edible fruit in the United States will drive out the
adulterated and inferior present commercial products."

SPECIAL OPENINGS.

There are now at Merced special openings for a nurseryman and a
dairyman; the latter would be by growing alfalfa (lucerne) and raising
poultry for at present the Merced people often have to get poultry and
eggs from San Francisco, 150 miles off.

POTATO GROWING.

A settler might make a really good return out of potatoes while his
Fruit trees are maturing, which is a food more in use in America than in
England. Potatoes are not only served at luncheon and dinner, but also
at breakfast everywhere, and, if every settler planted his land with
potatoes, there would be no fear of overstocking the market.

Mr. Eisen states that potatoes yield from 50 to 400 sacks to the acre,
and sell at prices varying from 90 cents to 2 dollars per sack. If only
50 sacks were grown to the acre, it would show a scarce year, when
prices would range higher, but the crop is never a failure in
California. Two crops can be grown in a year; the first crop is planted
at the end of February, if warm, or else in March, or indeed any time
till the middle of May, and dug three months after; the second crop is
planted in August or September, and dug three months after.

To put in the potatoes a settler would need the help of a labourer, to
whom he would have to give one dollar per day and his board, or, if the
labourer be a Chinaman, one dollar and a quarter per day without his
board. If the potatoes occupied ten acres, and they produced say 200
sacks to the acre, and fetched 1 dollar per sack, that would yield 2,000
dollars, or for the two crops 4,000 dollars, or, say, L800. This sounds
a large sum, but the land is exceedingly rich, as may be seen from the
samples I have brought back, and large results may be expected from it
if properly worked, for, of course, in any undertaking the result
depends upon the way it is worked.

The following paragraph is from an important paper or periodical of 20
pages, known as the _Pacific Ru