CHAPTER II.
WINE AND RAISINS--PROFITS OF DRYING FRUITS.
I have now seen the grape grow in almost every part of California where wine is made.

The temptation to a new settler in this State is always strong to plant a vineyard; and I am moved, by much that I have seen, to repeat here publicly advice I have often given to persons newly coming into the State: Do not make wine.

I remember a wine-cellar, cheaply built, but with substantial and costly casks, containing (because the vineyard was badly placed) a mean, thin, fiery wine; and on a pleasant sunny afternoon, around these casks, a group of tipsy men--hopeless, irredeemable beasts, with nothing much to do except to encourage each other to another glass, and to wonder at the Eastern man who would not drink.

There were two or three Indians staggering about the door; there was swearing and filthy talk inside; there was a pretentious tasting of this, that, and the other cask by a parcel of sots, who in their hearts would have preferred "forty-rod" whisky.

And a little way off there was a house with women and children in it, who had only to look out of the door to see this miserable sight of husband, father, friends, visitors, and hired men spending the afternoon in getting drunk.
I do not want any one to understand that every vineyard is a nest of drunkards, for this is not true.