Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1885-10-17
HOMEs ON SMALL FARMS.
The Good wark of Cutting Up Large
Holdings and In wiling Home-Seekers.

The Good wark OF Cutting Up LarC.
Holdings and In viting Home-Seekers.
YIsALrA. Tulare county, Oct. IA, 1885.
EDS. RECORD UNION: My experience as
Commissioner of Immigration for Califor-
, nia at the East, and my observations in
this State during my annual visits here and
since my final return to the State have en-
abled me 10 see more clearly than ever be-
fore the disadvantages under which Cali
fornia has labored and still labors in an
effort to increase her population by inviting
immigration. These disadvantages arise
principally from two causes. First, be-
cause so much of the land of the State is
held in large bodies, and not for sale except
in large amounts, or at wholesale. Eastern
people who come to this State to buy lands,
have been told, and tTuthfully too, that
there are millions of acres of land for sale
here at moderate prices. That forty, and
even twenty, acres Of land in California is
enough for the support OF family in COM
Portable circumstances, and enable the head
of the family to accumulate competency
for the future. But when the Eastern man
appears on the ground to find his twenty
acres, or forty acres, in condition to cult
vate and produce with such great album
dance, what does he meet?
lie finds that except on the moist river
bottoms, irrigation is as rule, an absolute
necessity 10 render the lands thus pro-
ductive. That the ordinary lands of the
plains, except when irrigated, are almost
exclusively devoted TO the production of
the cereals, and that very few farmers
would dare to undertake to make a living,
and as matter of fact very few farmers do
they cultivate more than 100 acres of land.
He finds also that, except in those portions
of the State where irrigation has been re-
cngniZed as necessity, and where it has
been actually introduced, there are almost
none of those twenty and forty acre hold
ings of which he has been told, and upon
which his mind Is fixed as an ideal Califor
MIA farm; but that, on the contrary, the
lands for sale at moderate rates are held in
tracts of ten, twenty and forty thousand
acres, and that no provision has been made
10 put them on the market in smaller guam
titles or to irrigate them, SO that if sold in
small quantities or farms, the purchasers
OF these small tracts can devote them to
such products as will insure living for
themselves and families.
Now these are plain facts, and it is be-
cause of these facts that so many home
seekers, with money i'll their pockets, return
to the East disappointed and disguised.
They fall in love with our climate, they
wonder at the richness Of our soil, but they
can find none of those small farms, with
water to render them so wonderfully pro-
ductive, for sale at moderate rates, and they
go home to tell their neighbors of their dis
appointment.
So far l have made no distinction as to
the situation in the different sections of the
ba ,Iar
alton. But there is great distinction or
contrast in this respect between southern
and northern California. In the southern
counties the people years ago grasped the
situation, and went intelligently to work to
break up their large land holdings and irri-
gate the small tracts. The result is that in
natural desert prosperous communities
and busy towns and cities have been plant
ed, and that end of the State has been and
still Is attracting and retaining much the
largest share of both European and Eastern
Immigration. These southern counties are
becoming pretty well settled up, and the
lands i'll consequence are held very high
probably too high for profitable investment
or remunerative cultivation.
The next section north OF Los Angeles
the southern San Joaquin yalley-con-
posed of the counties of Kern, TuEare and
Fresno, have been for a few years past
catching the fever and spirit of improve.
ment from their southern neighbors Natu-
rally these counties have many advantages
over the country south of the Tehachepi
pass Their soil is better, an lies in great
er bodies, making it possible for q greater
aggregation of production and wealth
Water here is more abundant-sufticient
indeed, to cover and render productive
every acre of land in the country. Being
nearer the soil to be irrigated, it is compar-
atiyely inexpensive to put it on the land.
Timber is abundant for domestic and build
ing purposes. The giant forest, composed
of redwood and yellow pine of the best
quality, lies just back in the Sierra Nevadas,
and is comparatively of easy access. Water
IS being brought cut of the numerous riv-
ers and spread over the lands, and the lands
are being divided up into small lots, and
colonies located. Printers ink is being
used freely, and the country is being writ
ten and talked UP both in this State and at
the East and in Europe, and people are
fiocking in here in search ofgood and cheap
lands, and they are finding them.
Excursions TO this section from various
parts of the State are the order of the dav
An excursion of the farmers of MERGED to
Tulare and Fresno took place on the list
and I'd of this month, to examine the irri-
CATION systems and the results of irrigation
on the soil and crops. Another from San
Francisco and other points to land sale
in Fresno came off on the Sd, and one from
Los Angeles, Cotton and San Bernardino
and all southern California takes place to
this county on the 18th, 10th and 18th
three days. Tickets good for return up to
the oath, on any train, at 50 a round trip.
Thus it would seem that the preparation
for immigration commencing in the south
ern end of the State has started north.
Will the people of the north wait till it
reaches them by the slow process of filling
up the country as it goes, or will they begin
similar system up there, and meet this
southern movement half way2
In my next l will tell you something
about the colonies of Tulare county, and,
perhaps, of the lessons of irrigation. Yours,
truly, l. N. HoAe.