BRASLAN SEED FARMS

of the proper kind of Japanese and Chinese to work on the various ranches which are devoted to this vast industry.

Seed growing is a business of endless detail and great care, for the principle underlying the growing of seeds, so as to bring each family and each variety to the highest state of production is that of selection. For this purpose, we select men who are especially fitted for the work of hybridizing and crossing of one plant with another, so as to improve each family, either from the point of early productiveness or for color and shape. While in human life we have our great doctors to cure our various ailments, in the plant life we have experienced selectors to improve the quality of each vegetable or each flower so as to bring them to the highest state of production.

I believe it is the duty of every man and every woman to give more thought to the growing of vegetables and flowers or the caring for kitchen gardens or flower beds grown around the home. There is no one holding so exalted a position in life but can find recreation and improvement, both physical and mental by devoting a few hours a week to the bringing of a vegetable or flower garden to the highest state of perfection.

The various illustrations shown in the present issue of this magazine will give the reader some idea of the appearance of the various crops as they appear on the seed ranches in this valley, and I am sure that every seed grower here in California would welcome a visit and take any interested party over their ranches and point out the great care that is exercised in the production of one single pound of seed.

In all the fertile lands of the earth, nowhere is there such a valley as that of the Santa Clara. In all the delightful climates of the world there is none such as this. It is the only land that is generous to man at all seasons of the year, pleasing his eye; charming his ear, by its sounds, and tickling his taste by its fruits; while balmy breezes carry to him the scent of myriads of flowers. He that craves for more craves the impossible!

Field salsify in bloom.
Field carrot in bloom.
Irrigating onions.

Chinese expert rogueing lettuce.
Cultivating lettuce.

"In the beauty of the lilies.

Christ was born across the sea, With a glory in his bosom.

Which transfigures you and me,
As he died to make men holy,

Let us die to make men free.
For God is marching on."

John Brown, of Harper's Ferry, lived the poetry Julia Ward Howe wrote. Mountains are the breathing places of liberty. The Swiss Republic could not live on a plain. Men could not look on the Matterhorn, the Jungfrau, and Mt. Blanc and live slaves.

John Brown, from his rustic home by Lake Placid, beheld Old White Face and Mt. Mercy. He drank draughts of the wine of liberty that the taunts of slave owners and the gibbet at Charleston had no terrors for him.

This inspired family, when the great Empire State made his farm a Mecca, and raised the

flag of the Restored Union over the rocky tomb, which honors his glorious dust; chose a mountain near a rich civilization for their California home. Only when his brave wife followed him into the glory, where she marches by his side, did his devoted children, descend to the plain, that

The residence of Z. O. Field, San Jose, Cal.

Scene at Alum Rock.

their children might get education for twentieth century life.

The John Brown home, as a wide neighborhood reverently calls it, is yet ablaze with light for the residents of Santa Clara Valley. Its new owner shows prompt interest in the young men of his region. His purse opened by telephone when the Y. M. C. A. canvas scored victory. The Wizard Edison showed him how to make his hill-top shine with a beacon light for miles around, as many carriage loads of people gratefully recall hospitality and welcome where otherwise had been darkness and confusion. Schools such as John Brown never dreamed of are open to his aspiring grandchildren, and to resourceful youth of any color.

A Senator of the United States, a world wide traveler, said: "Earth has no fairer valley than the Santa Clara." Bayard Taylor, writer, traveler, poet, wrote of these hills where the Browns built a home, and where the dust of the liberty loving mother rests.

*** Then let me purchase a few acres on the lowest slopes of these mountains, overlooking the valley, and with a glimpse of the bay. Let me build a cottage embowered in acacia, and eucalyptus and the tall spires of the Italian cypress.

"Let me leave home when the Christmas holidays are over, and enjoy the balmy Januaries and Februaries, the heavenly Marches and Aprils of my declining years here, returning only when May shall have brought beauty to the Atlantic shores. There shall my roses outbloom those of Peastum; my nightingales sing, my orange blooms sweeten the air, my children play and my best poems be written. ** **

Governor Stanford, who shared the planning of the first trans-continental railroad and drove the spike which bound the East and the West, who "did what one man could to make it possible for every Californian to own a good horse," gave his millions in the memory of an idolized son, that the sons and daughters of California

The rustic bridge at Alum Rock Park.

-aye, of the whole worldmight be educated for practical life.

Like the tall redwood-Palo Alto-which names the University town, the school has fame as square and strong as its great Mission Quad.

If they laugh in heaven, and I believe they practice that healthy exercis there, John Brown has shared the merriment of Heavenly scholars who smiled at the fears of pessimists that a second university would kill Berkeley. When Stanford was started, the State University homed four hundred. Now four thousand are enrolled. Can you hear them yell?

John Brown's family helped Oberlin College start when he was tanning leather for his livelihood. His esteemed daughter Sarah has the well-worn tools of her famous father's handicraft to show appreciative visitors.

she

What he did for slaves, seeks to do for aspiring Japanese. So truly does she inherit the humane spirit of her father than she has led more than three-quarters of her Japanese scholars into the Congregational fellowship.

It is not a strange thought in this era of wireless telegraphy, which even scientists cannot explain fully, that the spirit of a great man broods the place, where he

On the avenue, Alum Rock.

Alum Rock.

has wrought or where his dearest ones illustrate his ideals.

In Saratoga, Catholics and Protestants work pleasantly together for the public good. Below the "John Brown Ranch," as it is popularly called, the Sisters of the College of Notre Dame have established their "Rest Home" on a choice ranch with great oak trees and fine springs of water. A rounded hill crest has been beautified with a well shaded shrine, where visitors are welcome to rest and worship. It commands a surpassing view of a surpassing valley.

the

Retired teachers and rejoicing school-girls come and roam hills in safety, because the pious Sisters have joined the little community in persuading nine saloonkeepers to quit a bad business. Liquor is not sold legally in happy Saratoga.