The colony system, which has been brought to great perfection around Fresno, permits a family of small means to secure a good home without much capital to start with.  Where no money is paid for labor, a vineyard may be brought to productiveness with very small outlay.  At the same time there is so great a demand for labor in the large vineyards, that the man who has a five or ten acre tract may be sure of work nearly all the year.  In some places special inducements have been held out to people of small means to secure a five-acre vineyard while they are at work in other business.  One colony of this sort was started eighteen months ago near Madera, in Fresno County.  A tract of 3,000 acres was planted to Muscat grapes, and then sold out in five and ten acre vineyards, on five years’ time, the purchaser paying only one-fifth cash.  The price of the land was $75 an acre, and it was estimated that an equal sum per acre would put the vineyard into full bearing.  Thus, for $750, or, with interest, for $1,000, a man working on a small salary in San Francisco will have in five years a vineyard which should yield him a yearly revenue of $500.  From the present outlook there can be no danger of over-production of raisins, any more than of California wine or dried fruits.  The grower is assured of a good market for every pound of raisins he produces, and the more care he puts into the growing and packing of his crop, the larger his returns will be.  For those who love life in the open air, there is nothing in California with greater attractions than raisin growing in Fresno County.—­N.Y.  Tribune.

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COLD AND MORTALITY.

By Dr. B.W.  RICHARDSON.

During the seven weeks of extreme atmospheric cold in which the last year ended and with which the present year opened, every one has been startled by the mortality that has prevailed among the enfeebled and aged population.  Friends have been swept away in a manner most painful to recall, under the influence of an external agency, as natural as it is fatal in its course, and over which science, as yet, holds the most limited control.

In the presence of these facts questions occur to the mind which have the most practical bearing.  Why should a community wake up one day with catarrh or with the back of the throat unduly red and the tonsils large?  Why, in a particular village or town, shall the medical men be summoned on some particular day to a number of places to visit children with croup?  What is the reason that cases of sudden death, by so-called “apoplexy,” crowd together into a few hours?  Why, in a given day or week, are shoals of the aged swept away, while the young live as before?  These are questions which curative and preventive medicine have not yet mastered as might be desired.  Curative medicine, at the name of them, too often stands abashed, if her interpreter be honest; and preventive medicine says, if her interpreter be honest, “The questions wait as yet for full interpretation.”