The flowers of California are beautiful beyond description, and grow in masses that would astonish Eastern eyes.  Roses, lilies, daisies, poppies, grow on every side—­the cultivated garden flowers growing in the same profusion that our wild flowers do.

The Californians are naturally very proud of their flowers, and when President Harrison was making his trip to the West in 1891, the people of the State very sensibly concluded that in his progress from the East he had seen every kind of flag decoration that the mind could suggest, but that flowers such as they could show him would be a novelty to him.

The people of Santa Barbara therefore decided to hold a flower carnival in their city as a welcome to the President when he visited them.

Arches forty feet high were stretched across the principal streets, and decorated with flowers of all kinds.  Some were all of roses, some of palms and pampas grass, some of wild flowers, and some of the wonderful yellow Californian poppy.  From these arches hung festoons of marguerites, wistaria, orange and lemon blossoms, the streets being canopied with flowers.

The festivities were all of a floral character, winding up with a flower dance, in which forty-eight young ladies of the city took part, each representing a different flower.  Their dresses were fashioned and colored like the flowers they represented, and were covered with bunches of the real flowers.

After the young girls had danced for a few moments a number of young men dressed as bees joined the dance, and a few moments later a score of little children as butterflies.

This first carnival was such a success that it was decided to repeat it and make it an annual affair.

Since then, not only Santa Barbara, but a number of other Californian towns have held their annual flower festival.

People from the East are now making excursions to the Pacific Coast on purpose to see the charming sight.

The carnival season that has just passed has been more beautiful than usual, the favorable weather bringing the flowers out in great splendor.

In Los Angeles they had a parade of carriages decorated with flowers, a prize being given for the most tastefully decked vehicle.

The prize winner was a basket phaeton covered with pink carnations, and canopied with the blue Californian daisies.

Four white horses with harnesses of pink carnations, and collars and head-pieces of blue daisies, were attached to the carriage, and seated in it were two young ladies dressed in the same colors as the flowers.

No trouble is spared in decorating the carriages, and that no speck of any but the chosen colors may be seen, the entire carriage is first covered with cheese-cloth of the required shade, and the harness and whip wound with ribbons of the same color.  The flowers are then fastened on the cloth, and the carriage, wheels and all, looks like a bower of blossoms.