Page:Mexico, California and Arizona - 1900.djvu/466

 leaves. Faustino, Gaetano, Incarnacion, and the rest, for so they are called, appear to picturesque advantage in this work. Their swarthy faces are framed in slouch sombreros. They wear red-and-blue shirts, and bright handkerchiefs about their necks. They move forward in a line, pruning-knife in hand, and a small saw at the belt for the tougher knots. The spots of color twinkle upon the russet of the vineyard; the priming-knives flash as they turn to the sun; the ground has a gentle, agreeable fall; and splintered granite mountains, with deep cañons among them for exploration, softened by a veil of atmosphere, back up the whole. The orange-tree, even at a great age, is not as large as one may have expected. Even those of a hundred years in the mission garden are not above two feet in diameter. It is gratifying to be at full liberty to examine this attractive vegetation, known heretofore only in its tub in the conservatory, or on the staircase at a ball. There seems but one drawback to an orange-grove, and that is that it cannot have greensward below to lie upon. It is very exacting—requires all the nourishment the soil can give, and the soil must be kept loose and open around the roots. It is irrigated about once a month, and the surface gone over with a cultivator afterward, to prevent baking up in the sun.

The orange-grove is lovely at all times, mysterious when the long alleys are dark against the red sunset, the fruit glimmering like a feast of lanterns at twilight; and in the pleasant mornings sparkling among the glossy leaves like little suns newly risen; while we catch the perfume of blossoms heralding in a new crop, though the last still hangs upon the bough. Here and there is an example of the enormous shaddock, which resembles the orange in appearance but the lemon in character. The