The Worthington advance. [volume] (Worthington, Minn.) 1874-1908, 1883-10-11
A Great Rancho in California =.

In her illustrated article in the Octo-
Der Century on "Outdoor Industries in
Southern California" Helen Hunt Jack
son describes one of the great ranches
as follows: "The South California
statistics of fruits, grain, wool, honey,
ETC., read more like fancy than like fact
and are not readily believed by one UNI
acquainted with the country. The only
way to get real comprehension and in
teillgent acceptance Of them is to study
them on the ground. BY single visit
to great ranch, one is more enlightened
than he would be by committing to
memory scores of equalization board re-
ports. One Of tho very best, if not the
best, for this purpose is Haldwin's rancho,
in the San Gabriel valley. It includes 4
large part of the old lands of the San
Gabriel mission, and is principally in
itself. There are over hundred men
on its pay roll, which averages 81 GOO a
month. Another $4,000 does not n.ore
than meet its running expenses. 1t has
$1,000 worth of machinery for
its grain harvests alone. It
has dairy of forty cows Jersey and
Durhau; one hundred and twenty
| work horses and mules. and fifty thor
oughbreds. 1t is divided into four dis
tinct estates: the Santa Anita of 10000
acres: Puente, $1,000; MERGED, %, $50
and the Portero, $4,000. The Puente
and MERGED are shee ranches, and lave
$4,000 sheep on them. The Portiero is
rented out to small farmers. The Santa
Anita is the home estate. On it are the
homes of the family and If the labor
ers. 1t has fifteen hundred acres of oak
grove, four thousand acres in grain, five
hundred in orange orchards, fifty OF al
mona trees, sixty of walnut, twenty
five of pears, fifty of peaches, twenty of
lemons, and five hundred in vines; also
small orchards IF chestnuts and hazel
nuts, and aprlcots; and thousands of
acres OF good pasturage. From whatev-
er SIDE one approaches Santa Anita in
May, he will drive through wild gar
listers, yellow and white; scarlet
penstemons, blue larkspur, monskhood;
luplnes, white and blue; gorgeous gold
EN- eschscholtzia, alder, wild lilac, White
sage-all in riotous Towering. inter-
ing the rancheby one of the north gates,
ne will look southwark down gentle
slopes of orchards and vineyards Jar
across the valley, the tints growing
softer and softer, and blending more and
more with each mile, till all melt into a
blue or pu=ple haze. Driving from
orchard to orchard, down half mile
avenues through orchards skirting SEEM
lng'y endless stretches Of vineyard, he
begins to realize what comes of planting
trees and vines by hundreds and tens of
hundreds of acres, and the equalization
board statistics no longer appear to him
even large. 1t does not seem wonderful
that Los Angeles county should be re-
ported as having $500 acres in vines
when here in one mans rancho are 500
acres. The last equalization board re-
port said the county had 256, 1855 orange
and Al $50 lemon trees. It. would hardly
have surprised him to be told that there
were as many as that in Santa Anita
groves only. The effect on the cyeo
such huge tracts, planted will, single
sort Ut tree, is to increase enormously
the apparent size Of the tract, the mind
stumbles on the very threshold of the
attempt to reckon its distance and num-
bers, ana they become vaster and vas
ter as they grow vague''