Agriculture in California appears to be improving, and as it is getting to be as profitable as any thing else, it is attracting increased attention. Boxes of garden seeds which had cost nine dollars, have been sold for one hundred dollars, and scythes which cost three dollars, sold for forty-five dollars. The seeds which were sent around Cape Horn, were almost useless, while those which went over the Isthmus, hermetically sealed, came up first. One man near San Jose, has made fifty thousand dollars by raising potatoes. What toil in digging and washing gold would be necessary to realize that amount! Among the recent mining incidents, the following is remarkable:--Last winter, three men accidentally struck upon a rich deposit of gold, in a gulch about twelve miles from Knight's Ferry, on the Stanislaus River, and four or five miles back from it. They worked this vein with great success, managing to keep it a secret, until an Indian, wandering through the locality, discovered the secret, and communicated it to his tribe. The next day, several hundred Indians fell to work, with the same success; but as they spent their earnings in gambling and drinking at night, they incautiously let out the secret, and it spread among the whites. The latter, without scruple, took possession of the ground, and set the Indians adrift. An alcalde was elected, the ground staked off, and allotted to the several claimants. This gulch, although rifled of its richest treasures, afforded good digging for a large number of persons, for some weeks, many carrying away, when the water failed, a thousand dollars and upwards, as the result of their labors. The three discoverers of the gulch, took away with them about forty pounds of gold to each man, all scraped up in the short space of seven weeks. Imitation lumps of gold have been made and brought into circulation in California. The State Assayer states that above forty specimens have been brought to his notice. They are generally in size from four to five ounces to a pound in weight--quartz, and every thing else necessary to make them look right, properly intermixed. It has been definitely settled that gold does exist in the vicinity of San José. Specimens have been taken to San Francisco. Several artesian wells have been constructed at San Francisco, since the second great fire, and it is thought that others will soon add to the comfort and convenience of the people of that city. The want of good water for drinking purposes, has been the most serious objection to San Francisco as a place of residence; and additional incentive to exertion in the matter is furnished by the constant apprehension of destructive fires.[20]