The Press., 1885-08-06
LETTER FROM CALIFORNIA,
MORE ABOUT ANIMATE AND INANIMATE MA
 TURF IN CALIFORNIA.

MORE ABOUT ANIMATE AND INANIBIATE MA
 TURF IN CALIFORNIA.
 Pomona Cal July 10th, 1885.
 The badger is somewhat larger than the woodchuck, and lives in the same way, but never lives among civilization, and as soon as people begin to plough the ground they leave for unimproved land. But when they leave the gopher comes and takes his place and lives in his old burrow.
 The gopher is about as large as a grey squirrel, and is of all colors from white to black, but most of them are about the col or of the red squirrel. They are shaped like the mole, and dig long holes under ground In the same way. They have a pocket on each side of the neck to carry dirt in when they want to move it from one place to another. They are very destruc- tive to fruit trees as they dig under them and eat the roots, and kill the trees, so every man who has fruit orchard must keep trap or 8 gnn. They come ont of their holes early in the morning and if the owner IS up early he can shoot them, but they fill up their holes about sunrise. and then you must dig down where the fresh dirt is and put in trap which is made for the purpose, and when he sees the hole open he comes up to fill it and walks into the trap and is caught.
 The pototo bug, or Colorado beetle, which swarm on every potato field in the east, IS unknown here, and for wonder bed-bugs never molest the sleeper on this coast, and for some unknown reason do not live here. Pleas are plenty some peo- pie say, and they annoy them very much but they never trouble me, and I have not seen one since I have been in the state. Flies are omnipresent, and are just as nelghborly Tn winter as in summer, and screens in the windows and doors are never removed. Mosquitos are not plenty here, they thrive best in low, wet, marshy ground, where they have thunder showers and stagnant water, but here we seldom have any rain from March to November, and no black clouds ever arise in the west with murmurings of distant thunder, and flashes of lightning accompanied by tenn pest or cyclone. Now some of you will ask why don't the grass, and corn, and pota- toes, and fruit all dry up and become ruin ed? 1t IS because most of the tillable land is nearly level, and is very rich with very deep soil, and needs nothing but water to make vegetation grow rapidly. The crops are watered in this way. In the winter we have what is called the rainy season, and the mountains, and during the long dry
 
 and the water runs down in little brooks in every direction, and is conducted by ditches and pipes into all the fields and or chards, and is shut off when not wanted by gates and hydrants. When field of corn or an orchard wants irrigating, they plough a furrow between the rows of corn, or one on each side of a row of trees, and then let the water on and fill the furrows, and the water soaks down around the roots and then you ought to see how fast they will grow. About two days after the water is shut off, the land has to be thoroughly pull verized with a cultivator, otherwise it would bake as hard as brick. Land with @ water right is worth hundred dollars an acre, or more, which would be nearly worthless without water, hence it is said men buy the water and have the land thrown in. The Pomona land and water company have laid thirty three miles of cement and iron pipe to conduct water in the last two years. Beside the large quan- titles of water brought from the mountains, the company have twenty seven artesian wells, with six-inch pipes flowing constant ly, which furnish vast amount of water and as long as the snow and rain falls in winter, this valley will have an abundant supply. MT. John Brockbank, formerly of Stafford Springs, and late of Monson, is now proprietor of Browns hotel, and is having a good run of first class custom, and if any of his old friends or acquaintances come this way, give him call and test the quality of California viands for yourselves.