Daily Los Angeles herald., 1883-04-11


duh round Of success. Pleasure is APP
preciated far more poignantly when 1t
follows pain. While there may be that
misery involved in hope deferred which |
maketh the heart sick--a strain pro-
longed to so great tension that the |
very heart-strings may snap-there is
both excitatlon and stimulus in a reason.
ably deferred fruition Of ones expecta-
tons. The State of California has lately
afforded an instance in point. Until the
plenteous rains, which fell late in March,
a very lugubrious spirit had taken pos
session Of our people. Gloom was ON
every countenanee, and the merchants
Of our metropolitan city looked as
gloomy as did Priam, when they drew
his curtains in the dead of night, and
told him half his Troy was burned
When we consider the magnificent and
really unriveled resources Of California,
these mercurial moods of our people are
really inexplicable. No hyperbolical
orator Of the stump-huskings order can,
in truth, exaggerate our capabilities.
With perfect truth he can describe Cali
fornia MS an Empire in itself, and to no
State Of our matehless Union can this
somewhat bombastic periphrasis be APP
piled with greater propriety than to our
own. Californians in general have a
realizing sense of this agreeable fact. In
sooth, they resemble the Gaseous in
their ability to dilate upon the strong
points Of their section.
Whence, then, their occasional fits of
despondency'
The solution of this riddle lies very
near at hand. The people of this State
are in transition era. Until within the
past three or four years they have been
stepped to the lips in stock gambling
The number OF men in this goodly com.
monwealth who would demean them
selves by recourse to the vulgar agen-
cies looking to the acquisition Of comps-
tencies Of the industrious people of other
States and other lands has been small.
Bereft Of the excitements which fol-
lowed the unearthing of successive treas
ure bonanzas. they have been fitful and
npprehensive They have so long fed
upon the highly spiced food of the min
ing board that the frugal fare attendant
upon the pursuit of agriculture has
palled upon them, and the prospect of
dry year has appalled, their enervated
imaginations.
Yet we can already see signs of a
great and salutary change. Stock gam
bling, on any considerable scale, is
already thing of the past. Persever-
ing industry has replaced, amongst
great portion of our people,
the old hectic, unhealthy I'M.
pulse. The really influential portion
OF our population have gradually been
brought TO see that drouth in its prac-
teal aspect-that is to say, in denial
of orops--is really more frequent in such
States as Ohio, Pennsylvania and New
York than in California, always with
the exception of the extreme southern
belt OF the San Joaquin valley. The
fact is being realized at last that all that
is needed to pla ;e California at the head
of the crop producing sections of the
American continent is an intelligent
system of farming, based upon an
accurate appreciation of our climatic
conditions.
The present is destined to he golden
year. Never in our history have the
crops been so abundant as they will
prove to be during the current season,
with perhaps the exception of the
southern portion OF the San joaquin
valley, and even there the facilities Tor
irrigation have been developed ON such
large scale that the scant crops on the
unirrigated mesas will be supplemented
by an abundant and remunerative yield
on the more favored lands. 1t has been
our personal privilege lately to look
upon hundreds of square miles of the
territory of California, and the same
story of prodigal crops is told every.
where with the exception named,
In Los Angeles county the prospect is
even more attractive than in the rest of
the State. 1t was apparent, even be-
fore the March rains, that we were 10
be blessed with abundant crops. Nearly
everywhere hay was assured; while, over
large areas, both the barley and wheat
gave splendid promise. As the case stands
to-day, with the later benefactions of the
Weather Clerk, we risk nothing in pre-
dieting that we shall have between thirty
and forty thousand tons OF wheat for
export, after supplying our local wants.
For the large yield of barley which is
now assured we shall be the beneiioiaries
of an exigent demand emanating from
Arizona and New Mexico, and reaching
clear to st. Louis aud Milwaukee.
In sober verify it will be golden
year for this State and this section, and
we shall benefit by the adoge that it is
an ill-wind that blows nobody any good,