Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1863-11-12
The Fruits Of californfa---A Glowing Deseafp-
From San Francisco Letter dated Sept 2sth, IN
theNew York Evening Post
STRAWBERRIES.

the New York Evening Post
| STRAWBERRIES. -
Think-if YOU can think without breaking
the Tenth Commandments your cores
pondent. even at this hour, long past mid
September. making his daily lunch Of straw
berries. as fresh, as dewy-sweet, almost as
plentiful as they were in Fulton market il
June! When tell you that shall rise from
1 this desk to eat your health in plate OF
lucious seedlings, holding nearly quart, |
speak the simple truth. For the climate and
science have made the strawberry ID Cali
fornia a perennial bearer In February 1t
begins to appear IN the markets 1t Is IN
high abundance from April to September. 1t
is ALWAYS procurable until December, and
special arrangements with the gardner will
get it furnished you through that month and
| January, the scarcest OF the year.
OTHER FRUITS.
Nor is the strawberry sole mistress OF the
situation in this perennial characteristic,
A sight of the glorious fruity anachronism--
the reconciled incongruities which cluster in
that seasonless, time-defying hall of immortal
luxuries, San Francisco market-stall-
drive vegetarian mad with ecstacv, and
make an eastern man declare with DR.. Tribu-
lation Cunmings that the unbroken summer
! of the millennium was close at hand. Come
with me into cool alcoVe of the Washington
market, not five minutes walk from desk in
the Golden Era office, where l now sit writ
ing, and if your gensuous Inauguration can
bear the Barmecide feast which it will
| alas BE to you, on your side Of the conti~
nent, run over with me the catalogue of fruits
which we may find for sale there, ali at once,
and clear into the days of autumn.
Here are the straw berries of which have
sung rather than prosed, each large enough
to demand two bites and separate epithala
MUM for its marriage with your palate, yet
delicate as if it were the little field fruit of
the east (the strawberry of California is the
only one of its vegetables which preserves
this delicacy through all sthe sizes; by their
side the California blackberries, out Lawton
Lawton, both in magnitude and juiciness :;
huckleberries, blue, black and dewy-white,
| heap their purpie-blooded spherules in vast
| hills near by; here are raspberries Of all the
| colors which heaven makes them all the fla
vors, from that of the delicious Antwerp Sy-
barite, lounging Oh delicate espaliers in sunny
| gardens, to the fresh, original aroma of the
little black-helmetted savage who used to
scratch our attacking hands on Saturday at
ternoons of boyhood and summer. Here are
| giant goosberries, each possible tart, all save
! the pastry currants, white, red, black and
| golden, juicier and larger than the average
goosberry of the east; wild cherries, of sew
eral varieties; plums of every possible kind
No anachronism is too striking for this con-
| vention of Pomona's children. As the eter-
| nal kingdom of souls shall bring together in
sweet conclaye .Eschylus, Shakespeare, Pin
dar, Walter the Minnesinger, Mrs. Browning
Hafz and James Russell Lowell, nor shall
| either ask the other, 'Of what age are you 2"
"Where were you when | was singing in old
times ?" so the fruits in this sunny all-time,
yet no-particular-t time, of San Francisco, have
utterly forgotten that in other portions of the
globe the despot of the seasons bars them
from each others company and ushers them
into mems banquets only over each others
new-made graves.
So, in this anachronistc heaven of the
fruits, the gorgeous rare-ripe and malacatoon
peach smile across the berries | have re-
hearsed at the Bartlett, the Beurre d'Arem-
bourg, the Duchesse d'Angouleme, the Seckel
and the Nirgalieu pears. Ever, variety of
apple, from the herald Bow to the file closing
russell mingling its fragrance with the musk
and citron odors of innumerably-v mel
ons, and the cool scent of the green-skinne
giant who always carries suggestions of
Tivoli or plashy fountain perennial within
him. and is pre- nominated "water" for that
reason. Oh, the figs that pile their gold and
purple thuribles close by needing no priest
to swing them that their honeyed scent may
float everywhere under the arches, and bring
N to worship the eager bees-the no less |
eager boys who love them as well. When |
think how worthy of being loved is a plump,
fresh fig, feel a sort of honest pride in the
memory that there was never time when
did not love them, either an natarel, or iced,
sliced and eaten at dewey morning tide for
hroal -fa T
glad that fresh figs were no mere acquired
taste with me, as they are with some people |
| can't understand that Next to the figs
stand great bundles of most delicious sugar
cane from the Sandwich Islands, whereof l
learned to eat by the linear rod.
GRAPES.
While on the subject of foreign fruits let
me not forget that have seen here, during
this very month, lin company with all the
above mentioned, bananas and pineapples
from Acapulco, cocoanuts, bread fruit, man
goes, lines and oranges from Honolulu. But
the luxury of profusion reaches it's acme only
in the grapes! Anywhere on Kearney, or
Sansome, or Montgomery street-anywhere
in the Washington or Pacific markets-Bac-
chus migh turn around to take the lifelease
of lounge, crying "Ne plus mtra" Here,
each several berry, large an eastern green
gage, The glorious chrysoprase. punches of the
spicy Muscat hang almost bursting with the
weighty consciousness of their generous liquor,
and the sunshine sits through the translucent
globes of the open-air-trained Hamburgs, |
coming out amethystine on the hither side
In the vineyards and the markets Of Califor- |
MIA are over one hundred and sixty ,ceU defined
and separate varieties Of grapes! How then
shall we do justice to fruit like this by sim
ply calling Misunderstanding Sweet-water,"
"Los Angeles" :" Chasselas"-, and coming
later, though long before the, strawberries !
depart, our own transplanted eastern darlings |
the "Isabellas," "Catawbas" and Della |
wares" Since l have become convinced that |
California is yet to be the vineyard, per excel
day, down ct Fosters charming house, Point
Lobos, Zone gate-post Of the Golden Gate,) a !
native champagne which was nearer that di- |
vine concentration of why essence, the No |
seAe nuscatelle-yes, even to that ETHEREAL
hint of orange-howers left by its bouquet on
your extreme palate-tip-than any one wine |
in my memory is like another, beside these |
Harazsthy, the great Hungarian grape-grower,
is now at the head of a vineyard belonging to |
the Buena Vista Finicultural Society, which |
in ten years will rival Johannisberg.
will not linger in the fruity alcoves to
tantalize your now -beleaguered pal |
ates with more than the names of apricots. |
nectarines, damsons and cages. Nor will | |
bewilder you by dilatng upon the great piles |
of grosser vegetable luxuries, the summer
squashes, cucumbers, tomatoes, egg-plants. |
oyster-plants, mammoth potatoes and celery, |
crisper, larger, freer from blemish than ever