These chapters upon certain important houses and gardens in California have, with there own particular value of consideration and criticism, the value of the record. The book makes another milestone on the long road we have travelled so rapidly (socially, agriculturally and horticulturally) since the Padres came bringing with them the olive and vine. Something remains the Mission garden -hints of the plan of the quadrangle of flower and shrubs in or beyond the cloisters, and yielding in turn to the no less formal alleys of the orchard; and this rightness of design is perceptible still about the old Spanish residences that, here and there dot the valleys of California. One wonders what seed of purely ornamental trees and flowers these Spanish priests brought in their pockets for their own spiritual delight and to assuage their nostalgia? The Italian cypress seems to have been widely planted from the first, and the oleander, and the rough Castilian rose, and our common horehound, covering all our foothills, is said to be an estray from the priest's old "garden of simples." Originally published in 1915. Contents: Introduction 1. New Place, Residence of Mr. W. H. Crocker 2. Villa Rose, Residence of Mr. J. D. Grant 3. Hacienda del Pozo de Verona, Residence of Mrs. Phoebe A. Hearst 4. The Oaks, Residence of Mr. C. Frederick Kohl 5. Residence of Mr. H.E. Huntington 6. Villa Montalvo, Residence of the Honorable James D. Phelan 7. El Fureides, Residence of Mr. J.M. Gillespie 8. Uplands, Residence of Mr. C. Templeton Crocker 9. Arcady, Residence of Mr. George O. Knapp 10. Residence of Mr. James L. Flood 11. Residence of Mr. Hulett C. Merritt 12. Residence of Mr. George A. Newhall