The Sun.
London, England, 1869-02-11 00:00:00

BRITISH _EMIG IIA7YON 70 AMERICA

No. VT.—CALIFORNIA.
(From the Any7o-American Times.)
Hitherto our remarks have had reference to
States as homes for emigrants. But we now ad-
dress another class, the young man of enterprise, of
means and education. United testimony proves
California to be the most rising country in the
world, that it has risen most rapidly, and that its
progress during the next few decades will be mar-
vellous even in the eyes of those who expect so
much. Generally, foreigners attribute this to its
auriferous soil, leaving in their minds a very
erroneous impression. Taking California all in all,
climate, soil, productions and position, mountain,
valley, and water, it is the best territory on the
face of the earth. Couple this with the fact that it
is in the hands of a population noted among Amer-
icans for their extraordinary energy and resource,
and the reason is obvious why so much has been
done and so much more is anticipated. It may be
as well to explain here why a land so gifted is not
the best adapted for the immigration of poor
families. The first reason is the distance and con-
sequent expense. California cannot be reached
except at an outlay ruinous to an impoverished
family, consuming the very means essential to start
them in the new land. When there their main stay,
labour, is brought into competitijn with that of the
Chinese coolies—a strong, hardy, industrious race.
Obviously such disadvantages are fatal to that
class of emigration. But, on the other hand, the
latter fact appeals directly to another class as com-
bining advantages unequalled elsewhere in such re-
sources, coupled with such labour. The State extends
along the Pacific coast for 750 miles, averaging in
breadth 230, making an area of 188,981 square miles,
or 120,947,840 acres, of which 89,000,000 acres
are adapted for profitable agriculture, 40,000,000
being fit for the plough, and the rest for grazing,
fruit-growing, wine culture, and other industries.
The agricultural area alone exceeds that of the
United Kingdom or of the peninsula of Italy, and
is placed as follows: —ln the basin of the Sacra-
mento and San Joachim rivers fourteen million acres
of arable land, in the coast valleys sixteen millions,
and in the Colorado desert, Owens river valley, and
the Klamath Basin ten millions, making the forty
millions ploughable acres. The Eastern States are
sometimes said by travellers to be tame in scenery,
wanting in marked characteristics, and wearying
in sameness, but California is perhaps in the most
striking contrast to this of any tract on the face of
the globe. Her mountains tower in stupendous
snow-capped ranges, steep, rugged, and barren,
with valleys like Gardens of Eden in fertility and
beauty, extensive marshes spread here, and sterile
deserts there, while broad grassy prairies alternate
with dense ranges of forest. The Sierra Nevada
runs in a mighty barrier along the eastern boun-
dary, and another chain pursues a parallel course
along the coast. Between is a valley 500 miles in
length, averaging 70 in breadth, scarcely equalled in
fertility and climate on earth. Into this valley rush
the streams that pour from the mountains bordering
it on each side, collecting into the two magnificent
rivers the Sacramento and the San Joachim, the one
flowing south and the other north till they meet
half way in the estuary, forming the splendid
hirbour of the most rising city in the world, San
Francisco. Along the entire length of the Sierra
Nevada is a belt of gigantic pines, firs, cedars, oaks,
furnishing an inexhaustible supply of wood. This
valley is the main feature of the State, and its im-
portance as a producing district, we venture to say,
is unequalled. Along the coast are many extensive
valleys, such as the Salinas, the county of the Los
Angelos, and the San Diego, and all that portion on
the western slope of the range, if less fertile, is still
more cool, owing to the near neighbourhood of the
sea. The soil and climate of the State are emi-
nently adapted for wheat, barley, oats, potatoes,
hops, tobacco, hay, and sorghum ; in certain loca-
lities to Indian corn, cotton, and the sugar-cane.
Everywhere to such vegetables as are to be found
in Europe, and notably to all manner of fruits, such
as the apple, peach, pear, plum, cherry, apricot, nec-
tarine, quince, fig, and grape ; and along the south-
ern coast to the orange, lemon, citron, olive, pome-
granate, aloe, filbert, walnut, hard and soft shell
almond, currants, prunes, pineapples, and the banana
plantain, cocoa nut, and indigo. Strawberries, rasp-
berries, gooseberries, blackberries, figs (so good
as to be driving those of Smyrna out of the

Pacific market), grapes, and the hardier fruits,

as the apple, peach, and pear, grow in abun-

dance in every portion of the State ; and the
trees are noted for their rapid growth, early,

regular, and abundant bearing, as well as for size
and quality. The Land Commissioner of the
United States in a late report asserts that fruit trees

Plante] in California attain the size in two years

that they do in three or four on the Atlantic side.

At Petaluma k cherry tree, in two years after graft-
ing aid three from the seed, had a trunk 7 inches
round ; a plum tree of the same age was 11 feet

high ; and a peach tree, one year from the bud, was
8 feet, with a circumference of 8j inches; while an

almond tree, planted in January, 1855, being cut
down to within a few inches of the earth, had grown
in three years 20 feet high with a trunk 24 inches