Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1886-12-10
YES! SNOW AND ICE !


YES SNOW AND ICE
There are southern California infu-
ences, journalistic and otherwise, that do
not tire of preaching to Eastern under
standings the fact that northern California
has snow and ice. They expect that the
Eastern man will refuse to disassociate
frigidity or rigor of climate and eontiguity
to snow and ice belts, and as genial eli
mate is the chief desire of the homeseeker,
our southern friends harp upon our snow
and ice with JUNCTION and persistency.
Now, let the truth be told. We have
in Central and northern California snow
and ice, and in plenty; deep SHOWS, thick
ice, and enough to supply the people of
the Union, if need be, for all their cool
summer drinks. 1t was probably in view
of this fact that the Resources Of California
printed last week what purported to be a
snow-storm scene in northern California,
but which was wholly unrepresentative,
misleading, and in effect false. But the
fact that We have snow and ice must al
ways be stated, and invariably be received
with certain qualifications. All our snow
and ice are in the lofty attitudes of the
great Sierra range.
We look out in what is called winter
from beneath our orange trees, heavy
with their golden fruitage, and up to these
everlasting hills, their peaks clad in snow,
their pure lakes locked in icy rigors.
From amid the flowers of the plain, the
springing grain, the poisoning trees, we
look up to our snow and ice, farther dis
tant beyond and above us than the span
and the longitudinal dimensions of more
than one State of the Union. Certainly
with clear conscience and no reservation,
we must confess to the snow and ice, as
also must those who dwell beneath Italian
skies of ever blue, and basking in the rays
of Italys sun, look away not farther than
we to the lofty mountains wrapped in their
mantles of snow.
And it is a matter of sincere regret
that, in advocating the claims of all the
State as We do, we cannot say as much for
the people of southern California. That
there is lack of snow and ice upon
their low mountains, needful to feed their
streams and fertilize their lands is fact
they do not refer to. Nor, to be frank
can We blame them. They have
not mountain stores of ice and
snow to give life the year round to the
streams of the south, to permeate the soil
with moisture, to fatten the rivers with
pure water and make the land laugh with
plenty without irrigation
On the other hand our chief virtue re-
sides in the fact that the orange and the
lemon luxuriate upon our valley and foot
hill lands, and ripen in the warm breath of
mid-winter, whose frosted locks are so far
above US that not even the chill of fancy
reaches us. But out from these hoary hairs
drip the better part of the year the pre-
cious drops that feed our streams, give
volume and strength to our rivers to bank
fullness, and make our foothills and valleys,
our plains and bottom lands, without irri-
CATION, groan Justify in the travail and
labor pains that yield us all manner of
semi-tropic blessings; flowers to our desire
the whole round year; fruit of the soil
day in and day out; vegetation that every
hour of every day of every week of each
month of all the cycles of years comes
fresh to the dinner tables; oranges to our
Christmas festivities, with our children
clad in lawn and with barred heads beneath
the holly and evergreen vainly striving to
fancy it winter; Strawberries for our New
Years dinners from the gardens of our
mountain counties whose barred feet are
bathed in summer warmth, while their
temples are crowned with fillets of the
| fleece of the Sierra's winter harvest. Grant
it, brethren of the south, We have ice and
snow upon our mountains and thank God
for it, and that we are thus mercifully pre-
served from the parched desert and desc
late waste; the starved stream and the
shrunken and sunken river; the painting
soil and the furnishing earth, some of
which lives to such splendid purpose as
you bring ii, by the magnificent
energy you have displayed in artifcially
watering your limited garden spots, while
all our millions of acres of broad, fertile
plains, and yielding valley lands and
generous evergreen and produce-ladened
foothills, drink in their life and yield US
fortune from Natures founts of SHOWS and
ice in the magnificent attitudes and dis
tances of the regal Sierras.