At Ska, Pacific Ocean, July 3d, 1883. Water is one of the essentials of Horticulture. Wherever I have been in my travels, water has been the great question. If we only get rain enough - if too much rain does not occur - if our d tches do not give out - if our wells do not become dry - we shall have good crops. Here, where I am writing these lines, on the Pacific Ocean, 480 north latitude, there seems to be too much water. It is water, water everywhere. Once in a while we get a glimpse of a snow-cap, on the far distant Olympic Mountains; otherwise all is water. There is not a scrap of sea-weed floating on the surface, not a gull or other bird floating around, not a sight of a vessel of any kind now these five days since we have been sailing towards the North Pole, - even the whales which only two days ago disported themselves in great numbers, have apparently gone to rest. It would seem that the only use of this vast water prairie is to bear our ship along; yet to me it has its lessons. Possibly this beautiful world could not do with one ounce of water less.

The green fields, the succulent vegetables, the luscious fruits of our Continent owe their delightful character to this same Pacific Ocean. The millions on millions of gallons of water which every living thing evaporates, each gets from the clouds. These myriad millions come chiefly from this ocean. I forget exactly just now, but I think ten gallons per square foot per hour, rise from this mighty ocean in order to make horticulture a certain thing. To say of the ocean that it is a dreary waste of waters is a libel on creation. And the Polar ice, are these gelid sheets also a mighty waste? Just as this mighty ocean is our blessed handmaiden, so are these solid blocks of ice. There is no waste in water or ice. Everything serves us well.

Our Captain Morse said to me to-day, "the Scripture tells us the 'the wind goeth where 'er it listeth,' but it doesn't. It is just as much under despotic law as the motion of the planets. Down at the equator the sun warms the water and warms the air, and these are lightened; a heavier body pushes it out of place, motion begins. The cold air and cold water are heavier than the warm, and it comes down from the north to the south, the warmer going north to get cool and returning when cooled, so that so long as the sun's rays keep disturbing the balance by making the air and water lighter, there will always be a continuous current of water and air going north in one direction and returning in another." Here we have the proof. For five days that we have been on this ocean, wind and stream have been from the north southwardly; on the land the same rule prevails. High mountains surround valleys and the hot sun pours down, lightening the air and making a vacuum and then the heavier cool wind rushes in from the most convenient spot.

Captain Morse does not believe in an open Polar Sea. In latitude 8o° he has seen the upper strata coming up from the south, sink there and return cooled, without getting any further. " What then do you think," said I, "of the suggestion that the ice is thickest at its outer edge and thinnest at the poles? This is said to be a proof that the air is warmer where the ice is thinnest." " By no means does it prove this," was his reply, " if the atmosphere gives out all its moisture, say at 8o° there will be none left for 850, and the ice and snow will naturally be thinnest there." We shall therefore have to leave the question of the open Polar Sea rest for a while, - only having full faith that whatever may be the case, it is just what we need to make our operations just what they are.

But the water question will still go on. It is the great question of questions with Californians. On my arrival in San Francisco, almost everything was parched and the thermometer 960, a hot and burning wind came down from the north. This means that it came down over plains already roasted by the sun, instead of being drawn in from the ocean, as it was wont to do. There has been a cool spell in the north and the warmer ocean current had not been drawn in. It was funny to hear the people talk of the scorching north wind, the wind which we of the east receive with such welcome, in our seething days; 960 here however means much worse for vegetation than with us. We have moisture in the air. The air here already dry, is a complete desiccator at 960. I saw currants as completely dried up on the bushes as if placed under Ryder's fruit dryer; and the leaves of the trees in many cases, turned quite brown. At Hayward's, which is a remarkably extensive fruit-growing region, I hear the estimated loss by the northern wind placed at $500,000. There is however some compensation in all these cases. The fruit grower gets a higher price for that which is left.

I was amazed at the health and strength of the currant at Hayward's. The water here is so near the surface that the land is always cool and moist without irrigation. I found here among the fruit-growers proper, two very successful nurserymen, O'Neil and Collins. The former has found by experience that the Myrobalan Plum stock is one of the best for the peach, apricot and plum here. The trouble with the ordinary plum stock is that in this climate, they throw up a forest of suckers. The cherry plum, which is of the myrobalan section, does this to some extent, though not equal to the common plum. The original myrobalan seems to sucker scarcely at all. The cherry plum thrives very well in California, and large quantities are seen in the markets. They are not as good as the regular plum, but their earliness gives them a great place in profitable fruit culture. In the east I have seen the peach do poorly on the myrobalan stock. At O'Neil's nothing could look healthier, or more promising; apples and pears also were growing one and two years from the bud, I think, finer than any I have seen in the east. At Collins' I think are cherry trees as healthy as I have ever seen anywhere. Strong shoots, fine foliage, magnificent growth - and of course as a result, wonderfully large and luscious fruit.

So far as I have seen, the most popular cherries are Black Tartarian and Napoleon Biggareau - or, "Royal Ann," as it is called here. It appears that one of the early distributors read the illegible label, "Royalann" instead of Napoleon, - a very shrewd guess, as any one will see who tries to write the word out, without being very careful of the letters.

There is not much variety of ornamental trees under culture in California; but the great number I saw thriving at Mr. Collins' nursery, shows the variety is only through not knowing what to plant. At Mr. Shinn's, at Niles, were growing also a very great variety of ornamental trees, as well as fruits. This nursery also is not dependent, to any great extent, on irrigation, though water is often applied to advantage. The gopher - as one might say, a cross between a squirrel and a mole - is the great agricultural wretch of California. Several acres of friend Shinn's alfalfa, were well-nigh ruined by the miserable creatures, which, however, seemed happy enough in what was clover to them. But Mr. Shinn was also happy in the thought that he would let in his irrigating ditch on them in the fall, when they, at least, would have water enough and to spare. Mr. Shinn pays particular attention to peaches and apricots, and it was a rich treat to wander among his numerous varieties, and listen to the lessons drawn from his long and intelligent experience. He believes that there is yet room for a much better apricot than has yet been seen in California. The apricot, nectarine and plum are great successes in California, because the curculio has not as yet made its appearance.

The general impression seems to be that the climatal conditions are not favorable to its existence, or it would have certainly been seen before this. The traffic between the East and the West has been so enormous that in some form or another it ought to have got across.

The funniest thing I have heard here is about an embargo on Eastern plants and fruit trees, for fear of introducing the curculio - and I believe there is a commission, appointed by the State, to look after the introduction of insects. It does not seem to occur to these worthy gentlemen that the curculio would be much more likely to come in by the earth round a pot-flower in a lady's satchel, or in the cleft of an old log, than by the roots of a fruit tree, or the moss in which it is packed. Still, commissions are profitable concerns in some respects. As Captain Morse says about Arctic explorations, "it is just as well for people to believe there may be an open Polar Sea, and to send expeditions in search of it, though I believe there is no such thing, they find something that pays for all. De Long's discoveries in ocean currents, will pay navigators and students of physical science for all time, though his own life terminated in the search for it, some years sooner than it otherwise might."

Speaking of insects, the codling moth is beginning to be a terror to California apple-growers, as it is to us. The scale insect, in various species, is however the great foe to the fruit-culturist. I have seen orchards that were merely dry sticks - every tree dead! Some however are profiting by the teachings of the Gardener's Monthly, and use linseed oil. Pure linseed oil painted over the infested trunks and main branches - the smaller ones when infested being cut away - destroys the scale, and does not injure the trees. It is to be remembered that in our part of the world, while large numbers have used oil safely, some have found the trees die after using it; why, has never been understood, except the guess that the oil was not pure. Any light and cheap vegetable oil, ought to be quite as good. If, however, trees are cared for regularly the scale does not seem to get a foothold. On the grounds of the University at Berkeley, I saw an orchard of pears in a state of health and beauty I have rarely seen anywhere. There is no sign of scale, or of any insect on these trees. They happen to be under the care of one of the most intelligent gardeners in the country, Mr. Clay. All he does is to have the stems regularly washed with lye once a year.

It was wonderful to see such pretty trees, on a dry hill, and in such a dry climate. And yet, dry as it is, it is not unusual to have orchards pointed out that have suffered from too much rain - peaches especially. From October to May. rain is often continuous. If peaches or other trees commence to grow before the rainy season is over, they suffer, if " hard-pan " is beneath them. In well drained ground they get little hurt.

At San Jose - pronounced here, San O'Say, or O'Zay - which is the great nursery center of California, I found the question, which in some form or another, is the great question of California - water, still the staple topic. Here Artesian wells are relied on chiefly, to bring a flow of water to the surface. On Mr. Hannay's grounds, water which could once readily be found at three hundred feet had to be brought up from seven hundred feet. At Mr. Rock's, I found him busily engaged erecting flumes, to carry the water across to parts of the nursery, where old-time plans had failed. He had however one magnificent well, which was flowing out on the surface a stream as thick as one's leg. The great increase in the number of Artesian wells, and the turning off of mountain streams, to different directions, by the modern system of hydraulic mining, is necessarily shortening the water supply. The melting snows and rains have to supply all the water in and upon the earth. That which soaks into the ground appears again in some distant place through the rock fissures, in the shape of springs; the other comes over the surface as torrents, or mountain streams.

There is reason to believe that that which soaks in and forms the under-ground streams, or springs, is far less than that which flows over the surface as rivers or streams - that is, in the higher elevations from which artesian water springs. It is easy therefore to calculate just how much water there is at the disposal of this system, and to understand how limited the supply must be. The San Jose nurserymen all speak very highly of the business of the past year or two, and very encouragingly of its future prospects.

On the grounds of General Naglee, of San Jose, I saw one of the most beautiful specimens of the mammoth tree I have ever seen under culture, or indeed anywhere. They are not pretty in a wild state, and I have now seen all the groves - Mariposa, Calaveras, and all. But I had better stop. It is not easy to write under the influence of the pitch and toss of an ocean steamer, and four-fifths of your fellow passengers begging to be tossed over-board, as the best remedy for sea-sickness. I tell them it is all imagination, that if they would believe as I do, that there really is no such thing> they would never have it. But the world has always been punished for unbelief.

As we shall probably touch at Victoria, B. C, to-morrow morning, I will close this on the chance of getting to mail it. My next may be from Georgian Bay.

11.

Chatham Sound, Pacific Ocean, July.

I do not know when I have been more agreeably surprised than by a visit to the town of Victoria, which is on the south-east point of Vancouver's Island and between latitude 480 and 490 in the North Pacific Ocean. We had been for some days sailing on the Pacific and along the Straits of San Juan de Fuca, the heavily snow-capped mountains of the Olympic making the air so chilly that those who kept in the open air at all had to do so with overcoats, or, if ladies, in warm wraps or furs. All at once we came to the mouth of Puget's Sound, opposite to which is Victoria, and all was at once pleasant. Summer weather, and everything as lovely and beautiful as the prettiest poet might imagine. The harbor of Victoria is, however, small and shallow, and as a consequence, our heavy vessel had to lie for six or eight hours a mile and a half waiting for the tide to rise, and this gave me the opportunity to do some interesting botanizing among the rocks along the coast. One of my first surprises was to find the Siberian crab-apple, Pyrus baccata, indigenous here.* Perhaps it is recorded in our botanical works as indigenous to the North-west as well as to Russia; but I do not remember it, and have no work to refer to in the place where I am writing this, which is off the mouth of the Skena River, emptying into Dixon Sound. It must be the dwarfest form, possibly the one known in nurseries as the Paradise stock, for it trails over the rocks, making in some places a sort of thick lattice work ten or fifteen feet square.

Some of the plants I saw had stems coming up from among the crevices of rocks three or four inches thick, and yet, by their shaggy appearance, must be very old.

The town of Victoria, which we reached in the afternoon, is an indescribably pretty place. It is built on a high rocky bluff, and has a park called Beacon Hill, from its use in signaling in those olden times when Indians were troublesome. At present this hill is simply preserved for public use - drives only being led around it for carriages and horses, and "the poor man's cow" having free privilege to roam wheresoever she wills. The fern of the Old World, the common Brake of England and Bracken of Scotland, is indigenous here also, and grows to an enormous height - in some cases completely hiding the cattle from observation. Along the Yosemite I saw horses and cows feeding on this fern apparently with relish, but here they carefully picked out what they could get among the fern, and left these untouched. I made a note of this as another of those curious cases where two people might take opposite sides in an argument, and yet both be right. The population of the town is said to be eight thousand, but a large proportion is made up of Chinese and Indians. Statistics give 30,000 as the number of all the Indians in British Columbia; but I fancy from what I have seen that there must be much more than this.

A Victoria gentleman told me that he believed there were 20,000 within easy reach of the settlements. They have in most part adopted the habits and methods of Europeans, live together, work together, and to a great extent intermarry. The better class of Indians are very neat and tidy in their clothing and habits, and those who work for hire make excellent laborers. Chinamen, also, are in good demand. I was surprised to find how high labor was. A nurseryman, whose grounds I visited, paid $2.50 for day laborers - $35 and board per month for white labor, and $30 per month and board to Chinese. Everything, however, one buys is proportionably high. A newspaper for which we should pay two cents costs ten. Those who want to live as other people do, get along about as well as people do in other parts of the world; but if a person is determined to save and not to spend, he can very soon get a small capital to start into some business enterprise. But I started to speak of the marvelous floral beauties of the spot.

Though the mountain tops some fifty miles away are perpetually white with snow, except when the morning and evening sun lights them up in purple and gold, the air in the town is warm, though without sultriness, owing to the long day's sun (sixteen hours now) warming the sheltered spots where the high mountain ridges keep off the Arctic winds. The people are fond of flowers, and almost every cottage was embowered in vines, and seemed ready to break down with their load of blossoms. In my early life in England I have memories of whole buildings completely covered from roof to the ground with sweet roses and gratefully scented honeysuckles, but I have often found that early memories become magnified. The distance of time lends an enchantment to the early view. I had come to suspect that the roses may not have been quite so strong, nor the honeysuckles quite so sweet, as these early memories recorded them. But here they were even excelling these impressions and giving a new echo to the voices of youth. The tale was true.

The wild English honeysuckle, running up by the cottage door, rambling under the eaves to almost gable end, dropping in festoons between the windows, and only by the aid of art permitting a glimpse of the within, and giving out thousands - yes, thousands of bunches of their deliciously scented purple and white and yellow flowers. And the roses, and the Pyra-cantha, and the evergreen ivy, and the scores of other things which even we in Philadelphia cannot grow without much trouble - here may they be seen climbing in wonderful luxuriance, or making bushes, in some cases, nearly as large as the habitations they adorned. Roses, yes ! How they would have charmed the heart of an Ellwanger or a Parsons! How the enormous "Jacks," by the thousand, would have made the purses tremble of those florists who with us only get them to perfection by the lavish expenditure of cash and by the sweat of their brows! The roses! It is wonderful how they do here. Even the standard or tree rose is grown to an enormous extent, and make the same beautiful ornaments in yards that they make in the Old World. And the indigenous rose - Rosa cinnamonea or Cinnamon rose - grows in a state which I may almost call grandeur.

I have it growing in my Germantown garden, but about three feet is all the hight it cares to grow for me. Here you may see bushes - nay, masses - scores of feet in diameter, ten feet or more high, and bearing thousands of their remarkably sweet, rosy flowers, giving a fragrance to the air for long distances away. In many instances the Sweet Briar and Eglantine of the Old World had become naturalized, and had got into the fraternal embraces of their native brother; but these also were growing with equal luxuriance, showing that it is the climate which does it all.

* Since the above was written the writer has little doubt the apple referred to was the Oregon Crab, and not a form of the Siberian. On his return from Alaska, later in the season, he found the Oregon Crab on the shores of the Columbia River, with the fruit advanced and with the leaves in the almost Hawthorn-like condition proper to that species, instead of in the weather-beaten form of the plant on the shores of Vancouver's Island. The references to the use of this form as a dwarf stock for the apple will, however, still apply to the Oregon Crab. It may be interesting to add that the Oregon Crab was found as far north as Sitka - some trees near there being twenty feet high and with small trunks two feet round. - Ed. G. M.

When the time shall come that the whole country shall be brought under improved speed in travelling connections, and the United States shall be but a few days' reach from this now distant land, this ought to be the great rose center of the American Continent. Not only the rose, but numberless plants of the Old World have escaped from cultivation, and are making their way through the world, on their own account, most gloriously. The English daisy, the "gowan fine," which Burns tells us of in "Auld Lang Syne," is getting out everywhere among the grass, and the Furze and the Broom and many others abound in the woods and along the roadsides. In Mr. Johnston's beautiful nurseries I saw the Deodar, and many other half-hardy evergreens with us, growing magnificently, and I have never in any part of the world - not even in its native home at Calaveras, Mariposa, and other places - seen the great mammoth Sequoia so evidently well satisfied with this world as in Mr. Johnston's grounds. These nursery grounds are not very large, but had more variety than I have seen in any nursery since I left home. Apples, pears, plums, and particularly cherries, make a remarkably vigorous and healthy growth, and just now the cherries are breaking down with their weight of fruit.

But here, as elsewhere, good culture has to tell its own story. Apple orchards are set out, and then they are left to struggle for food with the grass or other vegetation, and soon get yellow, hide-bound and moss-clotted; and then the owners tell me " the apple is one of the fruits which will not do in Victoria;" but when you come to places where the apple tree has all the ground to itself, or, having other things growing with it, is still manured enough for both, then you see that the apple will do as well as elsewhere. And what a country for the cooler-loving fruits and vegetables ! The common currant grows five feet high and bears fruit as large as the cherry or Versailles. And such cabbages, lettuce, peas, and so forth, few, if any, of our readers ever saw. I almost felt that I could remain here, but when I remembered the grapes, and watermelons, and tomatoes, and scores of other things which we have and they may envy, I shall feel free to return as happy as when I left home.

I hurried to finish this, so as to leave it at some British settlement we might touch at on the road, but I find that on some Custom House or International law we must not land on British soil, so I must save it for mailing in some Alaskan port - probably Sitka or Fort Wrangel. T. M.