But, in truth, it is not easy to exaggerate, for the soil in the great valleys is deep and of extraordinary fertility; there are no forests to clear away, and farms lie ready-made to the settlers’ hands; the range of products includes all those of the temperate zone and many of the torrid; the climate is invigorating, and predisposes to labor; and the seasons are extraordinarily favorable to the labors of the farmer and gardener.  The people have not yet settled down to hard work.  There are so many chances in life out there that men become overenterprising—­a speculative spirit invades even the farm-house; and as a man can always live—­food being so abundant and the climate so kindly—­and as the population is as yet sparse, men are tempted to go from one avocation to another, to do many things superficially, and to look for sudden fortunes by the chances of a shrewd venture, rather than be content to live by patient and continued labor.  This, however, is the condition of all new countries; it will pass away as population becomes more dense.  And, meantime California has gifts of nature which form a solid substratum upon which will, in a few years, be built up a community productive far beyond the average of wealthy or productive communities.  This is my conclusion after seeing all parts of this State more in detail than perhaps any one man has taken the trouble to examine it.

[Illustration:  PIEDRAS BLANCAS.]

CHAPTER II.

WINE AND RAISINS—­PROFITS OF DRYING FRUITS.

I have now seen the grape grow in almost every part of California where wine is made.  The temptation to a new settler in this State is always strong to plant a vineyard; and I am moved, by much that I have seen, to repeat here publicly advice I have often given to persons newly coming into the State:  Do not make wine.  I remember a wine-cellar, cheaply built, but with substantial and costly casks, containing (because the vineyard was badly placed) a mean, thin, fiery wine; and on a pleasant sunny afternoon, around these casks, a group of tipsy men—­hopeless, irredeemable beasts, with nothing much to do except to encourage each other to another glass, and to wonder at the Eastern man who would not drink.  There were two or three Indians staggering about the door; there was swearing and filthy talk inside; there was a pretentious tasting of this, that, and the other cask by a parcel of sots, who in their hearts would have preferred “forty-rod” whisky.  And a little way off there was a house with women and children in it, who had only to look out of the door to see this miserable sight of husband, father, friends, visitors, and hired men spending the afternoon in getting drunk.

I do not want any one to understand that every vineyard is a nest of drunkards, for this is not true.  In the Napa and Sonoma valleys, in the foot-hills of the Sierra, at Anaheim and elsewhere in the southern country, you may find many men cultivating the grape and making wine in all soberness.  But everywhere, and in my own experience nearly as often, you will see the proprietor, or his sons or his hired men, bearing the marks of strong drink; and too often, if you come unexpectedly, you will see some poor wretch in the wine-house who about four o’clock is maudlin.