Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1888-03-12


lowing extracts from a letter written
by a well-known citizen in Caledonia
county to friends at home. Ed.
Los angeles, Feb. 18th.
Dear Friends, your inquiries
in regard to whether California meets
my fullest expectations, / will say
that it does not in some respects come
up to my anticipatiohs:
California is represented as the
land of sunshine and flowers. This
is true, in degree, but it is not all
sunshine here, nor is every place
decked and beautiied by flowers the
year round. We arrived in the coun-
try at the most unpleasant season of
the year. The winter season, cor
responding with the winter season on
the other side of the continent, tho
there is never snow or killing frosts,
is the rainy season. when heavy rains
are liable to occur, lasting sometimes
over period of many days. During
this period the earth receives all the
water that falls during the year, and
the earth soil if it can be called such,
which is adobe, not exactly clay, but
something that becomes so exceed
ingly clayey and dauby that it is al
most impossible to walk or drive
teams over it. During this muddy
period it is unpleasant here, though
the temperature and the air are agree
able all the while. When the rainy
season is over the soil becomes dry
and hard again, and there is little or
no rain for the next nine or ten
months, so say the old residents.
After the rainy season it is very
pleasant here, and one may enjoy
a walk over the hills and vast
stretch of plain, drinking in the balmy
breezes and mild atmosphere.
Farmers are we'll pleased when
there is an abundance of rain during
the winter because they anticipate
good crops. No rain, no crops, so
they get stuck in the adobe mire, and
foam and swear, but feel happy all
the same. Well, you may wonder,
as | often have before coming here,
how farmers can grow crops during
the dry months following the rainy
season. In Southern California they
grow good wheat, barley and oats,
and some corn. Those crops they
sow in the fall and winter, and they
grow and mature before the soil be-
comes so dry as to wither and blast
the crop. Other crops, including
vegetables and English grasses, can
not be grown except by irrigation.
Fruits trees of nearly all kinds have
to be watered artificially or there will
be no fruit and the trees will die.
Irrigation is expensive here, the only
supply in many localities being from
deep wells, the water being pumped
by windmills into large elevated
tanks, and is carried from them in
pipes or hose wherever wanted. There
are no cool, gushing springs, spark
ling rivulets and winding streams.
For a short time now there will be
some running surface water through
the canyons of the mountains and
gulches of the hi Is, but next summer
they will be dry, and the ground that
so readily mires now, at times will be
hard as pavement.
In a recent journey from Los An
geles we crossed through the Fernan-
do Valley, large portion of which
is devoted to the culture of wheat,
though there are large cattle and
sheep ranches. A Touring mill COM
pany in Los Angeles owns the larg-
est wheat rancho in this valley that
there is in Southern California, COM
prising $4,000 or go, 900 acres. There
are about $4,000 acres in the whole
valley, and it is as level as a floor.
1t is hemmed in on all sides by foot
hills of the coast and San Madre
Mountains. Two months ago, when
we crossed this valley, they were
blowing and getting in seed, and we
were informed that they had then