Italian shores, and can support as dense a
population. The figures that have been given as to productiveness and
variety of productions apply to it. Having more winter rainfall than
the counties south of it, agriculture is profitable in most years. Since
the railway was made down the valley of the Santa Clara River and along
the coast to Santa Barbara, a great impulse has been given to farming.
Orange and other fruit orchards have increased. Near Buenaventura I saw
hundreds of acres of lima beans. The yield is about one ton to the acre.
With good farming the valleys yield crops of corn, barley, and wheat
much above the average. Still it is a fruit region, and no variety has
yet been tried that does not produce very well there. The rapid growth
of all trees has enabled the region to demonstrate in a short time that
there is scarcely any that it cannot naturalize. The curious growths of
tropical lands, the trees of aromatic and medicinal gums, the trees of
exquisite foliage and wealth of fragrant blossoms, the sturdy forest
natives, and the bearers of edible nuts are all to be found in the
gardens and by the road-side, from New England, from the Southern
States, from Europe, from North and South Africa, Southern Asia, China,
Japan, from Australia and New Zealand and South America. The region is
an arboreal and botanical garden on an immense scale, and full of
surprises. The floriculture is even more astonishing. Every land is
represented. The profusion and vigor are as wonderful as the variety. At
a flower show in Santa Barbara were exhibited 160 varieties of roses all
cut from one garden the same morning. The open garden rivals the Eastern
conservatory. The country is new and many of the conditions of life may
be primitive and rude, but it is impossible that any region shall not be
beautiful, clothed with such a profusion of bloom and color.

I have spoken of the rapid growth. The practical advantage of this as to
fruit-trees is that one begins to have an income from them here sooner
than in the East. No one need be under the delusion that he can live in
California without work, or thrive without incessant and intelligent
industry, but the distinction of the country for the fruit-grower is the
rapidity with which trees and vines mature to the extent of being
profitable. But nothing thrives without care, and kindly as the climate
is to the weak, it cannot be too much insisted on that this is no place
for confirmed invalids