MISSION OF SAN JOSÉ.
This mission was founded in 1797, fifteen miles from the town which bears its name, and at the terminus of a valley unrivalled in fertility. It supplied the Russian Company with grain, who sent yearly several large ships for stores for their northern settlements. It is stated, in the archives of this mission, that the mayordomo gathered 8,600 bushels of wheat from 80 bushels sown; and the following year, from the grain which fell at the time of the first harvest, 5200 bushels! The priest told me that Julius Cæsar deposited in the temple of Ceres 362 kernels of wheat, as the largest yield of any one kernel in the Roman empire; and that he had gathered and counted, from one kernel sown at this mission, 365—beating Rom in three kernels! This mission had, in 1825, 3000 Indians, 62,000 head of cattle, 840 tame horses, 1500 mares, 420 mules, 310 yoke of oxen, and 62,000 sheep It has still a vineyard, in which large quantities of luscious grapes and pears are raised. It was secularized in 1834; and the old church bell, as if indignant at the change, has plunged from its chiming tower.