One day, at the Soda Spring, several of us asked Mr.Fry whether he could find gold near the river.

He took a pan, and digging at random in his orchard, washed out three or four specks of gold; and he related that when he was planting this orchard ten years ago he found gold in the holes he dug for his apple-trees.

But he is an old miner, and experience has taught him that a good apple orchard is more profitable, in the long run, than a poor gold mine.
A large part of the Sacramento Valley is still used for grazing purposes, but the farmers press every year more and more upon the graziers; and the policy of the Government in holding its own lands within what are called "railroad limits"-- that is to say, within twenty miles on each side of the railroad--for settlement under the pre-emption and homestead laws, as well as the policy of the railroad company in selling its lands, the alternate sections for twenty miles on each side of the road, on easy terms and with long credit to actual settlers, prevents land monopoly in this region.
There is room, and cheap and fertile land, for an immense population of industrious farmers, who can live here in a mild climate, and till a fertile soil, and who need only intelligence and enterprise to raise profitably raisins, orchard fruits, castor-oil, peanuts, silk, and a dozen other products valuable in the world's commerce, and not produced elsewhere in this country so easily.

It is still in this region a time of large farms poorly tilled; but I believe that small farms, from 160 to 320 acres, will prove far more profitable in the end.
The progress of California in material enterprises is something quite wonderful and startling.

A year brings about changes for which one can hardly look in ten years.