Morning journal and courier., 1891-08-13
BOASTS OF CALIFORNIA.
Some Of Its Immense Flowers and
 Giant Vegetables.


 Californians have become so accustomed to the superlative degree in many of the objects that possess an everyday familiar ity to them that they pass without 6 thought dozens of things that are objects of the greatest wonder to the stranger who is for the first time visiting the Golden State. These visitors have heard, it is true, of the big trees and the mammoth grape vines, and so on, but 1t is only when brought into actual contact with such phe- realize how tremendous they are. The Californian of course, feels fiattered at the expressions of surprise and admiration, but really he is so well accustomed to things of this sort that he has long since ceased to bestow more than passing thought upon them. Many, too, do not actually realize how many noteworthy and remarkable examples of prodigious growth are to be seen on every hand Having no ready means of comparison, 6 sixteen or twenty foot cornstock is accepted as mat ter of course, and 300-pound squash or a five foot beet attracts little notice
 It is worth while noting a few of the more prominent instances of what may be seen, both to refresh the memories of our own people and to stimulate the curiosity of visitors
 Take that beautiful but delicate flower, the fuchsia for instance. No one who has ever lived in the east need be told what care is necessary to induce this plant, rare ly more than foot or eighteen inches in height, to give forth few blossoms dur t,arv s1ao ol. s.. Il. q. | kept out of doors. How jealously it is watched and how carefully it is watered f and tended! At the first cool breath of | autumn it is hurried under shelter, and if during the season 8 dozen blossoms have l been perfected the labor and care is con- | sidered we'll rewarded.
 But to come to San Francisco and see the fuchsis as it exists here. Here is a great plant, dozen or fifteen years old, with 6
 stem as large as a good-sized tree and
 branches climbing to the very caves of a | two-story house. It is covered literally with thousands of blossoms, and has been
 so, through winter and summer alike, for | year after year. It is only one example out of many, which shows what this flow | CT is capable of becoming when it enjoys a | congenisl soil and climate.
 Look at the rose geranium, for example. | How many have nursed and coddled one
 of these plants through summer and win
 ter to be rewarded with a growth of per haps eighteen inches of limp stalk and @ few stunted flowers. But in California
 that is 6 different matter. A four years growth here has been known to result in
 an immense bush, with a stem as large as | your wrist and branches that covered the
 entire end of a cottage, reaching even to | the roof, eighteen or twenty feet above the ground. There is never sufficient frost to injure 1t, and it keeps on growing and | spreading and blooming year after year | until it becomes 6 dense mass of aromatic
 verdure and blossom.
 Most delicate of all flowers in the eastern | garden is the heliotrope. The first breath
 of frost destroys it, and there is more diff
 culty in preserving it unhArmed through | the long winter months than almost any
 other flower. Down in Ventura is 6 hedge
 of these plants some six or seven feet in
 height and so dense as to be impenetrsble,
 which has been growing with little care
 and no protection for years. It is covered
 with a mass of the delicate flowers, whose
 perfume fills the air for blocks, and yet ii | is so familiar an object to the people who ! pass it every day that they scarcely bestov
 6 second thought upon it.
 One of the choicest treasures of the At
 lantic coast flower garden is the calla lily
 With what patience 1t is watched and
 tilledl What rejoicing follows its success
 full growth to heigth of prehAps six in
 ches, and how happy is the possessor ot
 the plant when a single puny blossom re
 wards the efforts that have been bestowed
 upon it, But when visiting California he
 sees hedges three or four feet high, which
 are 6 solid mass of immense white bios
 sons, against background of the deepes,
 green foliage; where he sees fields with teni | of thousands of the snowy flower. waving
 in the gentle breeze.
 Of the flowers that are the most notable
 in this state, the east can more nearly hold
 its own with the rose than almost any oth
 CT. But what flower garden of the Allan
 tic states over bOasted a rosebush who's
 main stem, or rather trunk, was three fee,
 in circumference and its principal branci
 twenty-one inches in girthl Who ever saw
 6 rosebush whose branches covered l2, ,00C
 square feet of space-thst is, who ever saw
 such one outside of California; Yet in
 Ventura flower garden is just such speci men of what the rose becomes under tn, most favorable conditions.
 Many a reader of the Bible has puzzled
 over the allegation that SO insignificant : thing as a grain of mustard seed, whel planted, sprang up and became plant ir
 whose branches the birds of the air foun,
 shelter. The mustard plant of the Allan
 tic coast, foot or two in height, could no
 by any stretch of the imagination b thought capable of sheltering even tn , smallest of birds. But when one sees th vast mustard fields of California, the bibli
 cal account is easily understood. IT. mustard plant of California shoots up } dozen or fifteen feet in height. A horse back rider is easily lost in the thicket
 while the branches of the great plants cal I T Il. r. ar-- $ ands of the feathered tribes.
 @ There is @ stunted little priekly pear cac a | tus that is, or used to be, occasionall,
 found among the rocks on the upper par | of Manhattan Island. Its leaves were a f inch or two in length and of a sickly hu a and stunted growth. If one of these plant attained height of more than a foot i
 was doing remarkable we'll. If the owne Q of one of them were told that there wer members of the same family that frequent T ly attained height of fifteen to twent 8 feet he might be pardoned for expressin r l incredulity. Yet such is the fact, and i 8 more than one place in California may
 seen such instances of growth, with in @ mense lobes foot or eighteen inches 1 F diameter and thickly fringed either wit s beautifully tinted flowers or great yellor a | fruit.
 : Unquestionably if Kansas or Iowa farm - CT were to be told that there were cor !, patches in existence where the stalks wei
 so tall that the ears could not be reache :, by an ordinary-sized man, he would giy @ vent to a snort of impatience that any or @ should think him credulous enough to b T lisve such story. But if it were adde
 that whole fields had been seen in which @ six foot man was just able by standing O d tiptoe to touch the lowest ear on the stall
 with the tip of walking cane, then, il o deed, he would certainly denounce such is yarn as nothing but California lie
 Yet, as a matter of fact, these statemen
 are both true, as many a corn grow,
 in Kern and Los Angeles counties can te \ tify.
 h What would an eastern farmer think " he were told that squash grown on Vel h tura farm had been cut open, the seeds r
 moved, and an abundance of space four ie within which twelve year old child COT ,f fortably bestowed herself, after which Il 1t other half was replaced like box lid ar .s. the youngster completely hidden fro 'o viewi He might not credit the statemen y but it is absolutely correct.
 G. It might be found difficult, likewise, h. believe that beets measuring five feet
 length, and foot or eighteen inches m diameter are not so unusual as to eIci Id any great comment. Yet in more than ol th place in this state such tremendol