Across the centre of the principal room of the suite are three arches, supported by the side walls and by two wooden fluted columns, and under the arches are heavy portières of double silk, salmon pink on one side, old gold on the other. The windows are draped elaborately and beautifully—light blue silk shades, lace curtains next to the windows, with inner curtains of heavy pale blue silk, lined with silk of a rose tint. The furniture is of mahogany, upholstered with blue silk plush, the carpet is a rich moquette in delicate colors, and the toilet set is in Haviland Limoges decorated in deep blue, white and gold. The ceiling is daintily frescoed. From its centre depends a three-light electrolier; from the wall, over the bureau mirror, juts out a bracket with two electric lamps. The mantel is ornamented with two side pieces of Limoges and a bronze cathedral clock—a miniature representation of the clock in the Houses of Parliament, in Westminster. If you do not get from these notes the idea of a luxurious and tasteful apartment, the fault is not with those who furnished it, but with the pen which has failed to describe it.
SANTA CRUZ, CALIFORNIA.
Santa Cruz, Cal., March 27, 1891.
In area, Santa Cruz county is one of the smallest in California, but in resources, productiveness of soil and natural attractions it might be called the largest in the State. In its equable climate is grown almost everything indigenous to the north temperate zone.
The county is in central California, eighty miles south of San Francisco; it has a coast line of forty miles, and includes, according to the United States Government survey, 280,000 acres. So rich is it that there are not more than five thousand acres of waste land in the entire county. South of this is the Pajaro Valley, the most fertile spot of California, called “the wonder of the Pacific.”
There is not much stock-raising in Santa Cruz county. The mountains, being heavily timbered, are not adapted to grazing. Nor are citrus fruits cultivated to any great extent; but the apples of Santa Cruz county are superior to any grown in the State, the quality of the wine is unsurpassed in the State, and the remarkable richness of the soil renders the cultivation of potatoes, beans, hops, sugar beets, etc., profitable to a degree unknown in less fertile sections. The vegetable products of the county form one of its most extensive industries. E. S. Harrison, a trustworthy authority in California history, calls Santa Cruz “a vegetable wonderland.”
Let me illustrate the natural advantages of this region by a comparison. While riding on the Southern Pacific railway over the Texas plains, a month ago, the travelling auditor of the company, who was on our train, surprised me by stating that the company is glad to lease its lands at four cents an acre annually. Land within a couple of miles of where this is written is leased to Chinamen for farming at fifty dollars an acre annually, and they realize from it a profit per acre of two or three hundred dollars.