From Off The Boundless Harvest Fields The Grain Was Carried In
June, And It Is Now Stacked In Sacks Along The Track, Awaiting
Freightage.
California is a "land flowing with milk and honey."
The barns are bursting with fullness.
In the dusty orchards the
apple and pear branches are supported, that they may not break
down under the weight of fruit; melons, tomatoes, and squashes of
gigantic size lie almost unheeded on the ground; fat cattle,
gorged almost to repletion, shade themselves under the oaks;
superb "red" horses shine, not with grooming, but with condition;
and thriving farms everywhere show on what a solid basis the
prosperity of the "Golden State" is founded. Very uninviting,
however rich, was the blazing Sacramento Valley, and very
repulsive the city of Sacramento, which, at a distance of 125
miles from the Pacific, has an elevation of only thirty feet.
The mercury stood at 103 degrees in the shade, and the fine white
dust was stifling.
In the late afternoon we began the ascent of the Sierras, whose
sawlike points had been in sight for many miles. The dusty
fertility was all left behind, the country became rocky and
gravelly, and deeply scored by streams bearing the muddy wash of
the mountain gold mines down to the muddier Sacramento. There
were long broken ridges and deep ravines, the ridges becoming
longer, the ravines deeper, the pines thicker and larger, as we
ascended into a cool atmosphere of exquisite purity, and before 6
P.M. the last traces of cultivation and the last hardwood trees
were left behind.[1]
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