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Towering over all these growths scarlet foxgloves and blue lupins, rising in slender columns, formed a sort of oriental rotunda gleaming vividly with crimson and azure; while at the very summit, like a surmounting dome of dusky copper, were the ruddy leaves of a colossal castor-bean.
The country has not yet learned what crops will pay best. Farmers, are now trying the castor-bean and flax for seed, with some promise of success. I had information about an oil-mill, but find it gives occupation to only a very few operators. I think now of a factory for working the flax-tow into twine and rope, bagging, or mats.
In the East our common elders die every other year; in California they grow to be as large around as a man's body. In the East the castor-bean is an annual; in California it is a tree, many of them larger than a man's body.
"Why, it's only what we call the castor-bean, only this is larger," I venture to say. "Of course, my dear! 'A palma cristi by the pila' is the Baron's way of saying a castor-oil bean by the wash-house." My laugh is a little forced, I'm afraid, and the Baron seems not to have heard. "What is growing inside that fence?" I ask, with a stern determination to keep up appearances.
The ticks are all comparatively large, that is, they are all large enough to be seen with the unaided eye even in their younger stages and some grow to be half an inch long. This resemblance is responsible for some of the popular names, such as "castor-bean tick," etc.
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