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LETTERS FROM CALIFORNIA

MONTEREY, California, Nov. 1, 1846.

TO THE EDITORS OF THE NORTH AMERICAN:

Gentlemen:-In wishing to give you all the true information in my power respecting California, I cannot avoid mentioning its productions of many various kinds of exquisite fruits. In fact, California from one end to the other, is capable of being metamorphosed into a perfect orchard.

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There are twenty-one Missions in Upper Californ them has one or two large orchards, consisting of acres of land. All of these orchards are full of fruit trees, of different kinds and classes, and notwithstanding they have had no care taken of them for the last six or eight years, (many of them are not so much as fenced in) still they yield fruit in abundance, and to my certain knowledge not one of these fruit trees has been pruned, or attended to in any manner whatever (unless to strip them of their fruit) for the space of ten years.

Besides the orchards, which contain apples and pears of various kinds, peaches, pomegranates, plums, nectarines, and in the more southern part of the Territory, oranges in abundance. They have each, with the exception of two Missions, one or two large vineyards, which produce both the blue grape and the Muscatel in the highest perfection; the vines some individuals take the trouble to prune every year, and in the month of September gather the rich clusters, which very amply rewards them for their trouble.

Santa Barbara, though the soil is not so fertile as the more northern parts, is a complete garden, almost every house having its orchard and most of them a vineyard; the town of the Angels surpasses Santa Barbara in its productions of fruits, on account of the facility with which it can be watered. The same may be said of the Pueblo de San José, except where vineyards have been spoken of.

Gooseberries and currants can scarcely be said to have been introduced into this country, there being as yet but a very few vines, which are in the possession of one or two private gentlemen, who are cultivating them with great care; perhaps they do not amount to thirty bushes or vines in all California. Like most other things, with a little industry, intelligence and care, California would be one of the first fruit countries in the world.

Here are likewise sylvan fruits in abundance, such as raspberries, strawberries, whortleberries, blackberries and various others, which in many parts are highly flavored. In short, I verily believe that from the general fertility of the soil and the difference of climate, that almost every kind of fruit may be produced and brought to perfection in this country; because what one part of it will not produce, another part will.

Nov. 2.-The Californians are acting most destructively on the farms; there is not at present a single farm between Santa Barbara and Monterey that has one horse left to look after their stock. The depredators stop all carts and persons they find on the road, and plunder them; there are about thirty or thirty-five of them scouring within ten leagues of this town, but as yet there are no means of going after them, for want of horses. Col. Fremont has about three hundred horses here, but they are in such poor condition that not twenty would travel thirty miles, and his own horses are not yet arrived from the Sacramento.

Yesterday, having sent his horses out to graze, one of the men remained some distance behind the party and fell in with two Californians, who kept him in conversation until they got some distance from the town, and then asked him to allow them to look at his rifle; the man at first refused, when one of them took hold of the rifle and dragged the man off his horse, and whilst he was in the act of remounting, the man who held the rifle deliberately shot him. The ball went through the thigh and the man fell; he remained on the spot

about two hours, when some of his companions fell in with him, one of whom came into town to report what had happened, and take an escort to bring in the wounded man, the rest of the men remaining by him in the mean time.

This action has exasperated Colonel Fremont's riflemen to an almost uncontrollable degree. How many innocent men will eventually suffer for it, it is hard to say, but we already daily see some innocent person suffer considerably in the loss of his property, for the actions of some foolhardy villains. Should this insurrection last two months longer at this time of year, it will injure the prosperity of California to an incalculable degree.

The rains have set in, emigrants without provisions are daily arriving, troops are on shore in each town, and the inhabitants are getting pretty numerous, and there are no provisions in the country excepting beef. The Californians see this, and are aware that they now can get sale for their crops, and be paid in cash, and still they are so infatuated or so ignorant as to be running all over the country without knowing for what, or with whom, at the very time when they might be sowing their grain, with every expectation of raising extraordinary crops, as the season appears to set in for plenty of rain, which is all that this country requires for its agricultural productions.

Nov. 3.—An extensive commerce between this country and the Sandwich Islands has been opened within the preceding two or three years, but like every thing else here, it has not been carried on to one-fiftieth part of the extent it might be were the inhabitants inclined to industry. Lumber is now annually shipped from this place to the Sandwich Islands; inch boards are sold here at fifty dollars per thousand feet, and all sorts of lumber from one inch thick upwards, at forty dollars per thousand, cubic measure; methinks I hear you say, what an enormous price! yet still, before timber began to be sawed here, which was in 1829, Boston ships used to sell the most

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ordinary kind of inch lumber from eighty to one hundred dollars per thousand feet.

Now sir, here is a country (the northern part of it) which produces a kind of timber, the easiest in the known world to work, and in immense quantities. I mean what is here called redwood; it is a species of the pine, and grows at an average of two hundred feet high. This wood is not subject to the worms, perhaps on account of its bitterness, as I have heard some naturalists say; neither does it speedily rot. I have seen some of it taken out of the old buildings in the Mission of San Carlos, which was built about 1775, and it appears in every respect as sound as the day it was hewn out of the tree. It makes most excellent shingles, perhaps the best in the world. The first houses that were shingled in California were shingled in the year 1831, and the shingles do not appear to be injured by time or the weather, even in the slightest imaginable degree; for house building it is invaluable.

The other branch of commerce I mentioned in the beginning of this letter is soap; the ease with which it is manufactured in this country, and the execrable quality of it: its consumption and exportation are sufficient proofs of what the extension of this branch of commerce would be in the hands of industrious and intelligent persons. It is generally sold here at about fifteen dollars per cwt., and I have known a man with the help of two Indians, after having the lime ready, make one thousand dollars worth in twelve days. The cost of this would be about two hundred and fifty dollarswhat an enormous profit! Still, this profit will not excite a Californian to constant labor. If he makes a thousand dollars in one month, or in one day, he will not go to work again until that thousand dollars is spent, and perhaps not until he has run himself one or two thousand dollars in debt. After this he goes to work, if at all, with a bad heart, and it is ten thousand chances to one if ever he works that debt out. Rare is the instance in which the above remarks will not hold good.

November 4th, 1846.—In searching among some documents in the Mission of San Carlos a few days ago, I found one relative to the productions of California. There are five articles mentioned in it, but neither of them have been brought to a conclusion; like almost every thing else, where the benefit and advancement of the country were concerned, they have been thrown aside after one or two hours' attention.

The first concerns the growth and manufacture of cotton. There is not the least doubt that in San Diego, San Juan Capistrano, San Luis Rey, San Gabriel, and the town of the Angels, cotton might be cultivated with success, as I have seen it growing in an uncultivated state in or near each of these places. I have likewise seen this wild cotton gathered by the Indians and taken to the Missions, where it was wove into a sort of coarse blankets. This circumstance alone, is a proof that the climate and soil in those parts above mentioned, are adapted to the growth of this article; what I have seen of it grows very thick, and the bushes close together; they run about eight or nine feet high, though generally speaking not more than six feet, and the boll they produce is about the size of a small horse-chestnut, which opens in the month of August or the beginning of September. Since the Missions have been secularized, there has been no notice taken whatever of these wild cotton trees, and as lands have been granted, and cattle spread all over the parts of the country herein mentioned, there are very few traces of them left.

The next article is on wool, for which this country and climate are particularly adapted, but having mentioned this article in a former letter to you, I shall not enlarge on it here, more than to state that with one-tenth part of the care, trouble and expense with which this article is attended in almost any other country in the world, California would produce this commodity in an extraordinary degree, and I think I may affirm that ten thousand dollars laid out in procuring a suitable tract of land, (of which there are many in this country) say two square leagues, and stocking it with three thousand sheep, would in the course of five years repay the cost tenfold.

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