Los Angeles daily herald., 1874-07-15

Ony, purchase one OF these three thOuS-
and-acre tracts within two or three
miles of the depot at Compton, sink
their wells, plant their trees, and at an
expense of few hundred dollars each,
make themselves homes that in five
years. time prince might envy? A
tract of 2,700 acres was shown us, q
portion of which we passed over, with
three splendid artesian wells on the
tract, sunk for stock purposes, and this
can be bought for twelve and half
dollars per acre. Adjoining is two
thousand-acre tract. which will be SUBJ
divided if desired and sold in any guam
tity to suit purchasers. Farmers do
lands, their crops or themselves by q
1t can be done all through
this region, as the climate is
so changeless - the seasons so
unmarked, except as wet and dry;
but they consider one good crop in
one year, with some exceptions,
enough. We made several estimates
of the value of the products per acre
taking the staple products, and we
found them to average $50 per acre,
and the cost of seeding, cultivation,
harvesting and marketing, about SIS
per acre, leaving net profit to the
producer of $50 per acre. Thus we
see that a man can pay $50 per acre
for these best lands and in a good sea-
son like the present, he will pay for
his land and pay for raising his crops,
on every acre he cultivates. We wish
now to take our readers, in imagina-
ton, into Mr.. Compton's flower yard,
garden, nursery and fruit orchard,
and show them what we saw, where
five or six years ago grew nothing but
the wild grasses and flowers. He has
nine varieties of grapes, bearing as
full rs we ever saw vines; the wood
making an annual growth sometimes
Of twenty-five feet. Heie are orange
and lemon trees six years from the
seed whose trunks measure eleven
inches in circumference; chestnut
trees four years old bearing full; fig
trees one year old bearing, and two
year-old trees bearing the second crop
this season; two-year-old apple trees
breaking down with fruit; one-year-
old peach trees bearing. He picks
strawberries every month in the year
from his vines, but the strawberry
season ranges from February to July.
He has one hundred varieties of
flowers in his yard, and we
counted twenty varieties of fruits
viz: apple, pear, peach, prune, fig,
apricot, chestnut, lime, almond, or
ange, lemon, grape, raspberry, black
berry, goosebery, currant, strawberry,
pomegranate, English walnut and
black mulberry. His currant bushes
this year, three years old from the cut
tings, are yielding seven to nine
pounds to the bush. We ask the
reader to estimate the value of one of
such bushes at twenty to twenty-five
cents per pound. He has q young
nursery Of Il, ,000apple trees, sixteen va
rieties. the gratis being brought from
Illinois last Fall and set in the soil in
early Winter, standing two to three
feet high and has not in all lost over
five per cent. Mr.. &. had to carry tle
water of his artesian well up fourteen
feet, and there it is discharged into
tank with flow of over one and one
half inches. From the appearance of
the places in this neighborhood this is
only fair sample of the homesteads
of the people in and around Compton.
We trust our readers will excuse us for
going so fully into detail in these arti-
cles, describing our tour of observa-
tions embracing this section of say
two or three miles north and south
and four or five. miles east and west of
Compton. Believing in the motto:
What man has done, man can do"
we wish to show what the settler can
now do, by representing fairly what
has been done by these settlers under
many disadvantages, which the new
conner now Will not encounter, and he
will here find as good society as can be
found in any country place; and he is
in close proximity to school, church
and store, and is within about half
hours ride of Los Angeles city. G.. ID.
Compton has the sale of most of these
unsold lands.