Los Angeles daily herald., 1888-10-14
Our Lands and Our Climate


Out of the three million acres of lane
| in Los Angeles county, at least two mil
lion are tillable. OF this two million
acres over one-half are eminently suited
for the successful cultivation OF all the
sub-tropical fruits. The richest products
of the vine and the tree can be raised in
our valleys and foothills. Our mess
lands, where water has beer
brought to them, have proven te
be the best orange and vineyard
lands in the world. The fact that oul
lands are so valuable for the production
of the vine and the citrus fruits, as wei
as for the best order Of deciduous fruits
gives them value, far above that which
could be asked for lands outside of oul
favored region. The industrious mar
who has ten acres under choice cultiva
ton in this county has holding which
will yield him larger income than one
hundred and sixty acres in less favored
localities.
Mr.. A. B. Chapman, the well known
orange grower, made test two seasons
ago which is significant. He selected
five acres in one of his orchards and he
gave especial attention to them. He
enriched the ground with lime dust, kept
it we'll cultivated, and did everything his
experience suggested to keep his
trees in the healthiest possible con-
dition. At the end of the season
he realized from five to six hundred
dollars an acre from the orange
crop of those five acres This experiment
initiates strongly against the practice SC
common here in the past of planting out
orange groves on an extensive scale. The
smaller the orchard to each individual
proprietor (within reasonable limits, Of
course,) the greater will be the returns.
1t is personal attention, after all, that
counts in orange culture, and the man
who has a grove of ten or twenty acres
will meet with greater success and bet
ter returns relatively than the man who
has grove SO large that he cannot posi-
bly, give it his undivided attention.
We have no doubt that small holdings
will be the rule in the near future, and
one of the great reasons why this will be
tie case is the fact that there is more
money relatively in a small vineyard OF
orange grove than there is in large one.
And even if the price of land here seems
large compared with what it costs else.
where, measured by its returns and its
possibilities it is actually much cheaper
But Los Angeles is not without cheap
lands. We understand that the Coyotes
ranch, a fine tract of land embracing
10000 acres just south of Downey, is
in the market at the rate of $40
per acre. A colony could purchase
this ranch as whole at that
figure, or a syndicate could buy it
and subdivide it into small farms and
sell it for from $50 to $35 per acre, and
make splendid profit on the transac-
ton. Here then would be a chance for
men with modest purses to secure homes
where they could double discount ordi-
nary farms elsewhere in the returns they
would receive from their land.
There are no better dairy lands in the
world than in the Alamitos and in the
vicinity of Compton. The whole of that
region Of country which lies towards the
ocean south and west OF this city is as
fine dairy land as can be found any
where. The greater part of it can be well
watered by artesian wells. is wet lands,
or has water within few feet of the sur
face. Nearly all this land will
yield from three to elk crops
of alfalfa every year, and can
be bought at prices ranging from $50 to
$3.50 per acre. What is to hinder any
farmer from the East who has small
capital from getting rich on from forty to
eighty acres of this land? He would
make more solid cash in one year out of
forty acres here than he could make in
five out of one hundred and sixty in any
of the States the other side of the Rock
les. 1t is in the fact that we possess
great stretches of lands like these that
Los Angeles rests assured of solid
and permanent prosperity. The hard
experiences of western farmers will
send them here-as they are coming
great numbers to take their pick
and choice out of these cheap and at
tractive lands.
A man who has three acres of warm
lands in the Cahuenga foothills planted
it to strawberries last year, and realized
So, 200 from the crop, doing every bit of
work himself. If anybody doubts this,
let him have quiet talk with Mr.. A. H.
Denkef, one of our foremost and most
reliable citizens.
Three years ago gentleman who owns
a fine ranch between this city and Santa
Monica planted out a grove of English
walnut trees. He took great care in set
ting them out, and in cultivating the
ground around them. He is rewarded
this year with as large a crop OF nuts
as will be taken from trees else
where that were planted over ten
years ago. Now there are few
crops that pay better than the soft shell
walnut. They are always marketable,
and not perishable, and the fact that
with proper attention the trees can be
made to bear a good crop in three years
from the time of setting them out opens