_Comparative Value of Soils._--The river bottom soils, or soils formed by the deposit of creeks, are with few exceptions rich and deep, and contain in abundance all the elements necessary to produce a superior Muscat grape. Such soils are, however, often injured by subsoils containing mineral deposits, which will injure the vines, or by hardpans, which will cause the soil to dry out. Poor soils will not prove profitable, and rather than plant vines on such soils it would be better to plant no vines at all. The rich soils are not only the heaviest producers, but the vines grown on them are stronger and healthier and in every way better able to resist the attacks of insects and fungi and the ravages of other inexplicable diseases. But regardless of these advantages the various soils leave their effects on the grapes, some of them producing sweet and very keeping raisins, while others cause large berries and bunches, which bring the highest market price. Thus the lighter and drier soils produce richer flavored and sweeter raisins than the wet and rich soils, which again produce the largest and handsomest grapes. On the latter soils the raisins when cured will be found to be dark and covered with a heavy bloom, while the raisins from the sandier or gravelly soils are lighter in color and with less pronounced bloom. The keeping quality of the raisins from gravelly soils is well known. In California the keeping quality of the raisins is seldom inquired into, as our raisins keep remarkably well and are in this respect superior to those grown in Spain. This may be from the effect of our drier climate more than from any certain quality in our soils. As a rule it may be said that poor soil causes the raisins to mature earlier than the rich, heavy loams, and on this account the latter are to be greatly preferred, as the earliest raisins in any district are never as good as the bulk of the crop, and are in demand rather as a curiosity, and for the purpose of supplying an early market, than through any superior qualities. In some districts there is such a great difference in the time of ripening upon the various soils that the grapes grown on the earliest soils are used only as table grapes fresh. In planting a raisin vineyard, the future profits depend upon the choice of land, and it is far better to pay a high price for the best land than to take the inferior land as a gift. Few of those who now enter upon raisin culture take the proper care in selecting the land, neither do they sufficiently, if at all, realize the advantages of the rich soil, nor the disadvantages of the poor land.