of the wealth and comfort that raisin making has brought. Only toward
the west is the land still undeveloped, but another five years promise
to see this great tract, stretching away for twenty miles, also laid
out in small vineyards and fruit farms. Fresno is the natural railroad
center of the great San Joaquin Valley. It is on the main line of the
Southern Pacific and is the most important shipping point between San
Francisco and Los Angeles. The new line of the Santa Fe, which has
been surveyed from Mojave up through the valley, passes through
Fresno. Then there are three local lines that have the place for a
terminus, notably the mountain railway, which climbs into the Sierra,
and which it is expected will one day connect with the Rio Grande
system and give a new transcontinental line. Here are also building
round houses and machine shops of the Southern Pacific Company. These,
with new factories, packing houses, and other improvements, go far to
justify the sanguine expectations of the residents. There has never
been a boom in Fresno, but a high railroad official recently, in
speaking of the growth of the city, said: "Fresno in five years will
be the second city in California." This prediction he based on the
wonderful expansion of its resources in the last decade and the
substantial character of all the improvements made. It is a pretty
town, with wide, well-paved streets, handsome modern business blocks,
and residence avenues that would do credit to any old-settled town of
the East. The favorite shade tree is the umbrella tree, which has the
graceful, rounded form of the horse chestnut, but with so thick a
foliage that its shadow is not dappled with sunlight. Above it is an
intensely dark green, while viewed from below it is the most delicate
shade of pea green. Rivaling this in popularity is the pepper tree,
also an evergreen, and the magnolia, fan palm, eucalyptus, or
Australian blue gum, and the poplar. All these trees grow luxuriantly.
It has also become the custom in planting a vineyard to put a row of