l and genial climate, with plenty of sun, yet never
too hot and never too cold for out-door work, and most of its domestic
animals are never housed, and require no food but wild herbage.

FRUIT CULTURE IN CALIFORNIA.

Our lands at Merced, in California, offer to gentlemen wishing to make a
first or a fresh start in life a really good opportunity. It is
difficult to conceive how men with energy, enterprise, and a little
capital, can be content to sit in an office in foggy, blocked-up
London, "quill driving" from year's end to year's end, when a prospect
is afforded them, such as we now offer, of establishing a pleasant home
in a luxurious land, with a sunny, genial climate, and within about a
fortnight's travel of England, and where they would have the liberty of
being their own masters, and lay the foundation of a future competency.

CURRENCY.

As the currency in California is dollars, not pounds, we must ask our
readers to accustom themselves to dollars. A dollar is 100 cents, and,
roughly speaking, a cent is equivalent to a halfpenny, so that a dollar
would be worth, of our money, four shillings and twopence. Its value,
however, varies a few cents according to the place where it is
exchanged. Bank of England notes or pounds are never worth less than
four shillings and twopence, _i.e.,_ 480 cents or halfpennies, which, of
course, is four dollars and 80 cents, there being 100 cents in a dollar.
The decimal currency is extremely simple when once understood. Never
less than 4.80 is given for an English pound, but sometimes 4.82 and
4.85 is obtained.

MERCED.

The lands I have for sale are situate in the County of Merced, in
California, about 150 miles by rail from the City of San Francisco, They
are designated "British Colony," and at the nearest point are just one
mile from the boundary of the town of Merced, and two miles from the
railway station, hotel, shops, etc. Merced town is lighted by gas and
electricity, has water laid on, telephones, telegraphs, Court House,
Episcopal Church, Presbyterian Church, Cumberland Presbyterian Church,
Methodist Church, South Methodist Church, Baptist Church, and Catholic
Church, two schools, shops of various kinds; two railroads, the main one
running up to San Francisco, and down to Los Angeles and on to New
Orleans, etc., and the other, a branch line to Stockton, Sacramento,
etc. Merced is 175 feet above the level of the sea; it is a pleasant
little town, affords some co