FRUIT IN SANTA BARBARA

We now have many kinds of fruit: such as apples, pears, plums, berries, f>eaches, lemons ' orauges, grapes in varieties, guavas, figs, persimmons etc.

We can have some varieties of fresh ripe fruit on our table every day of the year.

Fruit is the largest part of my food. Nuts and melons are plenty, so you see we have very little fear of a famine. Just for mswelf there would be do animals kept on our farm to furnish meat, milk, butter or eggs, as I can get along nicely without any of them. Animals require much work and care for the amount of real food they furnish.

The markets are now looking nice, with such a display of the many varieties of fruits ! If you could step into our orchard and garden we could give you such a feast as you never had!

Dried Olives.

I have been pressing our dried olives, will have some 15 to 20 gallons of pure oliveoil. Will send you per mail a few dried olives, so you can see how the pure oil tastes. By

db, Google

pood. )1om^ ai)d Qardep

pressing an olive between the tfaumb and fin- ger yoa can obtain a drop of sweet oil from the bitter fruit. In some parts of Europe many dried olives are used for food. Some are used in Cal. Have sold loo pounds to S. W. Manning who lives mostly on fruits, nuts, vegetables etc. I like them, as by tasting of them now and then, the flavor becomes very pleasant.

ALASKA'S SOIL. Rudolph Hecker. Excerpted from the official hand book No. 84 August, 1897. As to the character of the countiy in the Youkon region ( now so often mentioned ) Mr. Dall, aays it varies from rolling ground and somewhat rocky hills to broad and marshy plains extending for miles on either side of the river. The underlying rocks in great part are Asoic (without organic life), being conglomerate, syenite and quart- site. The southshore of Norton Sound and portions of the Kadiak Peniusnla are basalt and lava. On the N. B. shore of Norton Sound sandstone and clay beds contHining liguite abound ; the former also does so on the Yukon, alternating with the Azoic rocks. The super- incumbent soil varies in different places, being clayey in some localilies, and in such situa- tions it is frequently covered with sphagnum (mosN) which always impoverishes the soil im- mediately beneath it. In others it is light and sandy, and over a large extent of country it is the richest alluvial, composed of very fine sand, mud and vegetable matter brought down by the river, and forming deposits of in- finite depth. The soil is usually frozen at a depth of 3 or 4 feet in ordinary situations. In colder ones it remains icy within 18 inches of the surfaee. This layer of frozen soil is 6 or 8 feet thick. Below that depth the soil is destitute of ice, except in very unusual sit- uations. The turnip flourishes wherever the potatoe thrives. But cereal crops cannot be grown in Alaska, nor can the fruit trees of the United States be cultivated successfully. Exceptionally, as above stated, gooseberries and currants do well; but, generally the

Strawberry and cranberry only can be relied npon. Fields spread ont, squared up and plowed do not obtain.