It is almost incredible the change the miners have thus produced in the short space of a quarter of a century.

The bed of the Yuba has been raised thirty feet in that time; and seeing what but a handful of men have effected in so short a period, the work of water in the denudation of mountains, and the scouring out or filling up of valleys during geological periods becomes easily comprehensible.
All our Northern fruits thriftily in the Sacramento Valley, and also the almond, of which thousands of trees have been planted, and a few considerable orchards are already in bearing.

The cherry and the plum do remarkably well, the latter fruit having as yet no curculio or blight; and the canning and drying of peaches, plums, apricots, nectarines, and pears are already, as I shall show in detail farther on, a considerable as well as very profitable business.

Dried plums, in particular, sell at a price which makes the orchards of this fruit very valuable.

Excellent raisins have also been made, and they sell in the open market of San Francisco for a price very little less than that of the best Malaga raisins.