clean and uniform raisins running out in a continuous stream, each grade in separate boxes. There is a restless activity on every side. The large raisin crop this year is very large; it must be handled in a few months, and every grower and packer is pushing the work to his utmost ability. When we consider that most of the crop, which this year will reach five hundred thousand boxes, comes from the country immediately surrounding Fresno City, and that the San Joaquin valley is 250 miles long by 75 miles wide, almost all the land capable of being highly cultivated and of producing abundant crops of one thing or another, then alone can we realize what the future has in store for this wonderful valley, an agricultural empire in the very center of California. FROM LOS ANGELES TO SANTA ANA. We are fairly out of Los Angeles when the character of the scenery changes. The railroad here runs through one of the most fertile counties in the State,--the rich bottom lands being formed by the deposits of ages from the overflow of rivers and creeks from the Sierra Madre range. Not an acre of waste land is to be seen anywhere. Everything is clothed in the softest green, and only in the far distance are seen the hills and higher mountains of a brownish violet color, with the boldest outlines against the sky. A more diversified farming district is seldom seen. Orchards of prunes, walnuts, apples and figs are met with on either side of the track, here and there expansive vineyards with their characteristic green, or groves of straight and stately gums, like immense square blocks of verdure, planted all along from the nearest fields to the far distant hills. We pass in succession Ballona, Florence, Downey and Norwalk. The country around the two latter places seems especially attractive,--orchards as far as we can see, vineyards and native pastures. We pass villages and farmhouses, here and there a more pretentious villa, and, in some spots more lovely than the surrounding, many a mansion has been erected with luxury and taste.