Show THE WORLDS WORLD S BIGGEST VINEYARD VINA cal may 25 1893 1 I write this letter on senator Stan fords famous north california ranch I 1 have visited palo alto and the horse farm near san francisco but they are nothing as compared with this great estate the vina ranch lies in the heart of the sacramento valley it is about two hundred miles north of san francisco and it comprises comes pris es miles of the finest soil in call cali forn fornia ia it contains more than acres and it has upon it the biggest vineyard of the world its wine and brand brandy production is so great that uncle sarn sam has had to put up a bonded warehouse upon it to collect his taxes and this warehouse covers more than two acres of space in it today there is stored more than a million dollars worth of brandy and before this can be sold the united states government must receive from it the enormous sum ot in revenue taxes the winery of this vast estate is more like a great frac tory than a collection of fa farm rm buildings its brick structures cover acres and from where I 1 write the great vines cover the earth almost as tar tar as I 1 can see you can ride for days over this ranch and not see the half of its wonders on one part of it thirty thousand sheep are nibbling at the sweet grass and the lambs among these which were born this thousand spring aprin usang number more than seven tho thousand ln in another place there is a herd of nearly two thousand hogs and it has daries which are supplied by the finest of holstein registered cattle and the horse d department a rement contains hu hundreds of valuable horses some of which are worth fortunes in riding this morning with captain mcintyre the manager of tl the ranch anch I 1 happened to say something about fruit trees and he told me that bore there were thirty miles of such trees along the irrigating ditch and he said 41 we have just put out c ut a little patch of six thousand trees this spring six thousand trees said I 1 do you call that a little patch most men would consider it an immense orchard ah said he we have just planted seven thousand more in the other end of the ranch and our fruit crop is a very profitable one we had last year over tons of grapes and it takes an ah army to pick the fruit there a are re itt round numbers about three million grape vines on the estate and when they are in full bearing we ought to have a product of about about pounds per year IT BELONGS TO THE university this estate is a part of the property which senator standford has presented to the leland stanford jr university it is is millions and he is spend spending inra a great eat deal of money from his private fo fortune re upon it and thus increasing its value every year just below here is a ranch of acres more which is also 91 given v en to the university and his palo A alto ito ranch where the college is located contains acres of valuable land AN ARMY OF WORKMEN it takes an army of men to manage an estate like this and on this vina ranch alone the employed emp loyes range from to 1500 in number it cost last month more than 1000 to board the hands bands upon it and the board bill of the workmen often runs up to a month it is interesting to know how such a farm is handled everything is systematic matic and businesslike business like the ranch is divided up into departments each of which has its head and these heads take care of the men under them and report daily to capt mcintyre the hands bands are parceled out just like the soldiers of an army and the forces are put ut where they will do the most good were there are about farm horses and a like number of mules almost constantly at work and the irrigation departments alone require the riding of its foreman a distance cUr gance of nearly twenty five miles e every lay day there are more than miles of irrigating canals on the place and there are fifty miles of such canals through the vineyards alone in addition to this number of work horses and mules are the saddle horses of the foremen and the men the carriage carnage horses and the highbred high bred horses which are brought here in hundreds from palo alto there is a horse department here which has an establishment almost as la large rge as that ot of the palo alto ranch it h bas as its training school and its kindergarten art en tor for the colts and it takes a number ge r of grooms and of skilled horsemen to manage them during my visit to it today I 1 saw some of the most famous of the senators horses and took pictures of 0 two which are to be shipped to the czar of russia in exchange for some grioff stallions which the czar is going tb send to senator standford in the horse department aas as in every other the work goes on by the clock and according to mule rule the horses are fed at 4 botlock in in the morning and the young C cults is are worked every day six quarts V of 0 oats ats a day is considered enough for a arse se though thong the feed e is gra graduated aate S ardi g to their work and astren strength h e co colte are put ut into the kindergarten fot fast training at six months they are never swarn at nor whiled and they ae as friendly as dogs and as gentless gent gentle leas as idt kittens tens BOARDING IN CAMPS nearly all the employed emp loyes on this estate alro bachelors they are divided up into camps cover about two acres and ana cin can accommodate five hundred men the vineyard camp contains a colony of 01 about ut seventy frenchmen who manage leir their own board and who receive so sc much wages and an allowance for eating they do their own cooking and IM like wine with their meals they use about gallons a month and r red d wine which they mix with water pere here and there scattered over the estate are ake other camps the most of which are furnished with chinese cooks by the manager and where they live and board ai at the expense of the farm they have rooms and good food and kneir their wages run from a dollar a day and board upward the foremen receive from thirty five to forty dollars a month the superintendents get seventy five do dollars lars a month and some of the skilled lied men much larger salaries the pay roll of this ranch runs from ten to twenty th thousand busand dollars a month and the rules are industry obedience and temperance A few are employed upon the place but the majority of the hands are americans MILLIONS IN BRANDY I 1 spent some time in going through the winery and the brandy vaults everything is is managed in the most economical and most scientific way and the senator is trying to prove that california will produce the best brandy in the world he has opened a warehouse in the east and he ships his wines and brand brandies ies away by the car loads during the month prior to my visit he sent away gallons of brandy and he believes that this part of california is better adapted to the making of brandy than of wine capt mcintyre tells me that the secret of making good brandy is to take out the fusel oils but to leave the essential oils and parts necessary to be oxidized to make it ago pr properly and the machinery here is adapted to that purpose I 1 wish I 1 could describe it walked in and out among great hogsheads hog each of which would hold as much h as gallons and I 1 saw vats in which ten and twelve thousand were stored in one room the brandy was run through coil alter after coil of pipes and in another I 1 found that it was vaporized vaporizer a again ain and again each time losing some of 0 its fusel oils seven great vats hold in ng gallons of brandy are used for ti this is purpose and outside the winery I 1 saw hundreds of great barrels connected with pipes into which the wine and brandy alandy were run during a part of the processes the cost of the buildings of this brandy factory is more than coo and they are lighted by electricity the cooper shop of this establishment is worth notice the cooperage and the storage vaults alone will hold a million and a half of gallons and the casks of these vaults are so tall that if Beti benjamain jamain harrison could stand on grover cleve lands head he could not more than reach to the top of them in the fermenting room there are barrels which hold gallons and in the bonded warehouse are barrels containing more than half a million gallons the brandy in the bonded warehouse is guarded night and day by united states government officers A government gau ganger gr is here most of the time and there is is a government officer always in charge of it when any of this brandy is taken out for sale the money for the tax has to be put down before it can be gotten it is like the buying of postage stamps there is no credit to the united states and you have to ta pay cash during the last month was given to the government for taxes and something tike like ic oooo worth of taxes have I 1 am told been paid for brandy which is still unshipped and irb in addition to this as I 1 have said before mr morse the government storekeeper tells me there is due uncle sam at least worth of brandy tax the owners of the brandy have a right to leave it in the warehouse from three to five years but they are not allowed to move a barrel until the tax is paid this bonded warehouse is is said to be the largest in the world it is lighted by electricity and in walking through it between the thousands of barrels you seem to be in the very cata combs of barrels HOW THE VINEYARD IS MANAGED this big vineyard embraces about six square miles of territory the whole is is laid off with perfect regularity into blocks of uniform size and streets of regular width it is in fact a city of grapes each block contains about fourteen hundred vines and the main streets which run through them from east to west are forty eight feet wide and they are cut up by avenues sixteen feet in width there are about six hundred and eighty vines to the acre and I 1 was S surprised d to find that the vines were tr trimmed down almost close to the earth every year some of the vines are very old and others have just been planted the grapes are ripe about the last of july and the picking of the grapes begins about the first of august they are picked in boxes holding fifty pounds each and there are twelve thousand of these boxes ready for use the picking is done by gan gangs of men and boys and at its feirt height about a thousand men are employed the rhe vineyards are plowed r regularly e and their cultivation is carefully watched with hoe and harrow capt mcintyre has been for years engaged in vine growing and everything is managed on a scientific basis even in the picking 1 of the grapes the greatest care is used the grapes are sorted as they are picked the men gather the grapes in in pairs each rian man carrying a box As they go from vine to vine they put the bad grapes in one box and the best ones in rhe bapes e other and these are used for different grades of wine or brandy the picking always begins early in the day and if the weather is very hot it is suspended and resumed only late in the afternoon and carried on into the night so that the pickers work the usual number of hours A good picker ought to average forty boxes or a ton of grapes a day and some men can pick as much as a ton and a half FEED ON A california FARM it may interest you to know what men eat in one of these big farm fanti boarding houses the cooks have to make out orders for just what they want and every item has to be specified from a monthly order before me I 1 see that they consumed last month three barrels of sugar one barrel of rolled oats and large quantities of corn starch macaroni beans peas sausage rice sa sago tre tta tea and coffee and meat nearly all the meat and vegetables come from the firth farm and all of the butter and milk the me men inen have their breakfasts at 5 a m and are allowed forty minutes to eat at 6 they go out to work with their teams and at 1130 they stop for dinner and lay off until a quarter of of one they stop work at 6 and have supper at 7 As far as I 1 could see they seemed to enjoy themselves and to be a sort of happy go lucky crowd they have a base ball club of their own and there is a dancing club which they keep up some of them are good boxers but they nearly all belong to that class of workmen which you find in california who drift along from place to place working all along the coast from los angeles to seattle and not seeming to care for a home of their own A LOOK AT THE HOR HORSES SEc I 1 spent some time in looking at the fine horses on this ranch there are which were brought here in in special cars from the palo alto ranch and there is a race track here of a mile in length for the training of them the kindergarten is a little pen containing a circular track perhaps berha it s a quarter of a mile in length and t the e trainer stands in the center of this with a whip and cracks this at the colts as they run about it senator stanford told me one day his theory as to this mode of training said he 1 I believe there are certain muscles which the horse uses while he is going fast that are never called into play when he is making his ordinary gait the horse which is never speeded does not call into play these muscles he may have the germs of them but they lay jay dormant and flabby I 1 believe by the cultivation of these muscles by speeding the colts that they grow and become stronger from born year to year and the colt taps thus acquires his perfection the chief thing hing is to prevent them overdoing you ou can ruin the training of years in an hour and the greatest trouble is in getting good trainers my idea is to excite the colts to do their best without over exertion and this done from day to day with any of the great horses of the day taken when they were young would woul have I 1 believe made them to do better work than they are now doing I 1 am told here at vina that the czar has offered to send senator stanford anything he wants in his stables in return f for or a couple of good harses from palo alto for breeding purposes it is not known positively what horses will be sent to russia but the trainers here think that among those picked out will be the stallion good gift good gift is by electioneer out of a thoroughbred mare he has a good record and is beautifully formed senator stanford thinks that the orloff breed would if it could be introduced into this country become a very popular coach horse for the rich people ot our cities the orloff horses are large and showy the most of them are black they possess great endurance and are noted for their fine action and their high spirit they in make ake good time and they would b bring b big ig prices in in the united states the senator has two magnificent coach horses at washington which are as black as jet and which are made very much after the style of the Orlof ls I 1 do not know as to their breed but they are one of the most valuable coach teams in the united states tates senator stanford believes that no greater thing can be done forthe for the farming fanning interests of the united states than in the improvement of the breed of our horses he once told me that he thought the kind of horses he is raising here would make far superior farm horses to the heavier variety such as the normans and the Perc herons he thinks they have more endurance cost less to keep and that they will do more work in a given time than the heavier variety his horses here as well as those at palo alto will be g given iven to the university estate if he should die and it is I 1 think his idea that his breedin breeding 9 establishment will be continued his horses I 1 am told are a paying investment and of a hundred colts which he has every year it is rare to find one which will not bring at birth FRANK G CARPENTER |