The average soil required must be a strong, friable one by nature, or made so by application of the lacking requisites. Fine results are shown on our heaviest adobe soils, where careful culture and ample moisture are supplied, but the application of sandy loam and leaf mould or decomposed turf greatly benefits this class of soils. For lighter ones, burnt clay with manures of all kinds are valuable. A clay subsoil is invaluable in holding both moisture and plant food. Fresh manures should be liberally applied at the beginning of the rainy season, and decomposed ones as liberally in the spring, for a mulching during the early rains, then to be spaded into the ground. If desirable, this mulching may be replaced by lawn clippings in warm localities. A marvelous growth of Marechal Niel may be secured by giving this treatment during the summer months also. It will bear ten or twelve inches (not too near the stalk), with a generous daily supply of water. The result of a like treatment was twelve feet of growth in one summer, and the roses were wonderfully beautiful. The plant, of course, was a budded one. Concerning the expense of rose gardens, the range is as varied as the taste and means of the rose-grower permit. A large proportion come into life and beauty very much after the fashion of Topsy. They grow from small beginnings, and out of slowly gathered experience. California is a land of experiments; it is still delightfully indefinite; there is as much of floral prospecting to be done as of any other sort, and its devotees are as persistent and undaunted as the most incurable gold-seeker.

The favorite varieties cultivated are found among the lists of Tea roses, giving as they do almost constant bloom. Hybrid Perpetuals form less than a tenth of the ordinary rose garden, as two crops at most are all that can be expected, and the latter a small one. Noisettes, Bourbons, and Hybrid Teas form a somewhat larger proportion. The ordinary varieties of these are supplied by florists on the coast at from ten to fifty cents each, ac

come higher, and are likely to be cautiously ordered until they have established a wellgrounded reputation. The second season from planting will give fine results from even the smallest plants, the larger ones giving returns at once if carefully planted and cared for. Buds of winter-blooming varieties-W. F. Bennett, Sofrano, Sunset, Bella, Madame de Walteville, Bon Silene, Cornelia Cook, and others-have always a commercial value, regulated mainly by frosts and operas. Other exigencies afford fair returns; a conjunction of these two will afford golden ones.

A point of interest in this view of the subject is a successful venture in Southern California, to introduce the Provence Rose for extracting the well-known attar of rose of commerce. Dr. Hall-until recently a resident of France-has a plantation of these, and other perfumery plants, at Carpenteria, a suburb of Santa Barbara. It is proposed to enter upon the extraction of the essential oil as soon as a sufficient stock shall have accumulated; and the day is not far distant when we shall add to our exports the varied extracts of perfumery plants, among them the attar of rose.

At a rose festival in Santa Barbara, the question was propounded as to how one not familiar with the numberless rose family should distinguish a Provence rose from its countless sisterhood. The inquirer was taken to a portion of the hall where a large bowl of this fragrant variety stood, and thereafter no difficulty will be experienced in deciding on the locality of a Provence rose, even if its form or color is forgotten. In these it somewhat resembles our native Castilian, but is less double, and smaller. A very large crop is required before it can profitably be utilized.

The poetic element is not ordinarily wanting in any direction in this realm of sunshine and flowers, where beauty is a birthright and her kingdom a perennial one. It grows in the eternal silences, is fashioned without sound of the hammer or echo of turmoil. And yet one touch of tenderness, one note of pathos, we lack-we have no "last Rose of Summer," around the memory

late years of the war to the desirability of having the Union and Central Pacific railroads extend a branch to Portland and Puget Sound, thus doing the work for the great Northwest that the Northern Pacific has since accomplished. Some time in 1868 the General, in talking over the subject with Ben Holliday and myself, used the strong expression: "You Oregonians have been fairly robbed of a railroad."

Among the early friends of Grant on this coast were the late Ben Simpson, of Oregon, Collector of the Port and State Senator; also a few old merchants of Oregon. Captain R. R. Thompson, of this city, was well acquainted with Captain Grant in Oregon.

The stories which have been extensively circulated to the effect that young Grant led a dissipated life while on this coast, may be briefly characterized as lies. He was a nice, quiet fellow, who made friends, and stuck steadily to his business. There was a story told in many parts of the coast to the effect that Grant lived in Humboldt County for some years, and "drove a mule team," as an imaginative pioneer once was heard telling a group of men on Pine Street. Another story often retailed is that young Grant once kept a billiard saloon in Walla Walla; still a third that he "went to the mines," and owned a claim on the Feather or upper Sacramento; while yet a fourth is, that he lived in Stockton, and "loafed penniless about its muddy streets one winter in the early fifties." These stories, and similar ones, are sufficiently, set to rest by the evidence of George W. Dent, late United States Appraiser, and General Grant's brother-in-law; also by the statements of Grant's early Oregon friends.

Grant's arrival on the Coast was in 1850. He brought government supplies and stores for use at Benicia, where he deliverd them to the Quartermaster General. His regiment was for some time stationed in San Francisco. At this time, George and John Dent were living at Knight's Ferry, and he visited them there, during his first furlough. It was during this visit that he explored the Stanislaus and Tu

olumne hills, saw the miners at their work, helped the Dents build a bridge, and had what he afterwards spoke of as "one of the best vacations of his life." While in San Francisco, he boarded at the Tehama House, which stood on the site now occupied by the Bank of California. His regiment was called to Northern California and Oregon to aid in quieting Indian troubles, and shortly after its return he wrote out and forwarded his resignation, immediately after which he proceeded to the Eastern States.

Senator Nesmith, of Oregon, who died a few months ago, was a prominent member of the Committee on Military Affairs of the U. S. Senate, and gave his hearty support to all of Grant's measures. During the darkest hours of the great General's career,, Senator Nesmith, one of the best known of war Democrats, was determined to sustain him, and Grant often made his headquarters while in Washington at the Senator's house. Both Stanton and Halleck were often opposed by the energetic Senator, but no one ever heard a word of complaint from Grant, whose loyalty to the ideals of military obedience was one of his most admirable qualities. Only President Lincoln, and a few men such as Nesmith, knew how strong a pressure was brought to bear against Grant at this time.

Ben Holliday kept house on E Street, in Washington. He was then President of the Oregon and California railroad. Among the old friends who often assembled there, one would often see General Phil. Sheridan, Quartermaster General Ingalls, now in Portland. Oregon, and General Grant, together with any other old Pacific Coasters. They would sit and smoke, and talk over old times till past midnight, when the President's friends would accompany him to the door of the White House.

I was on board the steamer that carried his daughter, Nellie Sartoris, across New York harbor, on her way to England. Grant showed deep feeling, and said to a friend who stood near me, My heart goes across the ocean with that girl."

66

A. M. Loryea.

WHO, twenty-one years ago, could have believed that as a united and harmonious people we should mourn the death of the leader of the national armies in the colossal struggle then going on-that for such a cause the outward emblems of grief would so soon enshroud a land convulsed by dissension and bloody war?

Unanimity and peace seemed to have departed never to return; and our unhappy country was rent by passions so fierce and desperate that the civilized world stood aghast at the spectacle, and wondered if the fratricidal war would stop short of the destruction of the combatants. The land was deluged with brothers' blood. Twenty-one short years have passed, and a united and happy people mourn the death of the most prominent actor in that fearful struggle. The South unites with the North in paying homage to the chief who led the Union forces to victory. The East and West alike mourn his loss.

Though such incredible change has come over our happy land, it is not probable we are yet competent to pass in just review the character of the mighty chief who handled an army of a million men with such easy skill and terrific force. The sense of relief from overwhelming peril is still upon this generation. The hopes, the fears, the despair engendered by the most terrible struggle ever engaged in by the human race are still too fresh in our recollection for us to judge calmly and dispassionately the character of the man who, above any other, was instrumental in saving us. His life, like that of Lee, his great competitor, remains yet to be written. To those who have followed him with friendly but critical eyes since his great victory at Donelson, he is hard to understand. Such simplicity and straightforwardness of character; such obtuseness of vision at times, with such wonderful prescience at others; such an infallible judge of the capacities of his military subordinates, and such an easy dupe to transparent wiles of others; such surrender of self and entire devotion to the cause of suppressing the rebellion, with such

selfish egotism in seeking a third term, after the experiences of the first and second, and against the protest of the country; such extraordinary capacity and incapacity, have rarely been equaled, and need the hand o a master for their correct portrayal.

Of his life in the army before the war little is known. Colonel Bonneville (the Captain Bonneville of Washington Irving), who commanded Grant's regiment at one time, once told the writer that Grant was compelled to leave the army. The truth, no doubt, is that army life on our frontier posts was utterly distasteful to him. He took no interest in his duties and had no professional pride. His accomplished Colonel could not forgive the apparent insensibility and lack of interest on the part of his subordinate, and matters came to such a pass that Grant sent in his resignation. One would suppose his situation then, with a young family, without money, without a profession or business, and no capacity for business, would have been most depressing. Yet probably he did not suffer from depression of spirits. His attempt at farming near St. Louis was a failure

During the war his persistent refusal, on all occasions, to talk was the cause of much comment. His enemies said he couldn't talk, and the loyal element of the North wondered that a general who could command armies should seem unable to converse about anything except horses. But this extreme reticence was sometimes laid aside in presence of a congenial spirit. A friend once told me that just after leaving college he visited a brother who had married a sister of Mrs. Grant, and was living near the St. Louis farm. The young man spent much time with the future general, and found him an excellent talker. He said that on every subject which came up for discussion it was evident Grant had thought, and had given it careful consideration. So that the impassiveness and taciturnity, for which he was so famous during the war, did not arise from lack of thought or ability to express it. A gentleman now living in Grass Valley knew him well in Galena, and bears

witness to the General's conversational powers and the extent and variety of his information. But these mental stores were only exhibited to a few friends.

In Galena his father allowed him a salary of $40 per month. His poverty and his taciturnity made him one of the most obscure men of the town. Did he suffer as any other man of his education and men tal powers would have suffered under such circumstances? He was now thirty-nine, an educated gentleman, with a large family, dependent on his father, who paid him $40 per month for services as clerk and salesman in a leather store. The war broke out, and for the first time, so far as known, this man was really roused.

War became at once the business of our people. But men who knew anything about war were exceedingly scarce. The demand for anybody who knew anything at all about military drill was immense, and Grant soon found himself drilling a company of volunteers, and soon went with them to the State capital as their captain. Regiments were being organized faster than men fit to command them could be found, and Grant, as a graduate of West Point, was almost immediately made Colonel.

Men fit for Brigadiers were few, and this Colonel, who evidently understood his business, and was quietly and sedulously attend ing to it, was soon promoted, and given an important command. This man who had served in the army for eleven years with indifference to its duties, by the chance of a great rebellion finds himself suddenly restored to it, with high and independent command. He who disliked, and who has always disliked, military life and all connected with it, finds himself at the head of an army, and determined to make every possible use of it to grind the rebellion to powder. The impassive, taciturn man is thoroughly aroused. The nominal Democrat, who had apparently taken no interest during all his life in his government, unless to denounce the anti-slavery agitation, awakes, and with cool head, iron will, and a heart devoid of fear or doubt, bends all his powers to beat the enemy in the fight. He recognizes the fact at

once, that to prevent the disruption of the Union all the energy and force of the entire North must be put forth, and the South conquered by crushing, overwhelming blows; that the Southern people must be defeated in battle until utterly exhausted, and that it was only by constant and fearful fighting the South could be exhausted and the war closed.

From the moment he took the field, and long before the rest of the country realized the necessities of the situation, his clearness of vision seemed like inspiration. For four bloody years he was a representative of the Union force of the nation, grim, resolute, fearless, undoubting.

In 1864 it seemed, and foreigners thought, the North and South would fight to their mutual destruction. They compared the two sections to Kilkenny cats. Nast published a cartoon of a noble cat (the North) engaged in deadly combat with the black, short-tailed cat of the South, with Grant quietly looking on and remarking, "Our cat's tail is the longer." It represented in homely manner the grim determination of which Grant was the embodiment, to fight it out at any cost. That he made mistakes as a General, it is useless to deny. That the enemy, 40,000 strong, should march up to within two miles of his army, and go into camp for the night, without his knowing it, and then attack him all unprepared the next morning, is unprecedented in the history of warfare.. But, likewise, it is unprecedented that a commanding General, assailed under such circumstances, should be as cool and undisturbed as if on parade, and as resolved to fight and conquer as if he were the attacking party, and be able to infuse his resolution and self-confidence into his soldiers. It has been said that he was not a Napoleon, but his Vicksburg campaign is without a parallel in military annals, save only in Napoleon's Italian campaigns. The military critic finds it hard, in these portions of their careers, to award the palm of genius in those matters constituting a master in the art of war. The conception of the plan, the estimate of the movements of his adversaries, the celerity of his own movements, the rapid