Los Angeles daily herald., 1888-11-22


OFFICE OF PUBLICATION, 1885 West Second
street, between Spring and Fort, Los Angeles
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 1855.
The Opening For the Farmer In
Southern California.
One of the peculiar things about the
life of farmer in Southern California is
that, while he really only works about
one-third of the time that his brother in
the East devotes to horticultural or agri-
cultural pursuits, the results are infin-
itely more attractive both from pecu-
mary and esthetic standpoint. In
Western Pennsylvania or Western New
York, farmer and his whole family ap-
ply themselves to the labor of the field.
In the case of the daughters this simply
means that they tend and milk the
COWS, care for the chickens, and 80 on.
The boys plow and work. On the
proposition that man has huLdred-
acre farm, the whole family put in a
year in strenuous labor. When the
Texas Pacific Railway was making its
surveys in Southern California sixteen
years ago, one of the parties in the field
was headed by Mr.. Reno. This gentle
man told the writer that his father
owned good farm in Beaver county, as
farms in Pennsylvania ranged, about
thirty-four miles below Pittsburgh-one
of the greatest manufacturing centers in
the United States. All the boys were
employed in working about the
farm, and they could just make
ends meet. In Pennsylvania then
as row eleven bushels of wheat to
the acre was big yield. OF course, the
farming was diversified, because there
would be starvation in raising wheat
simply. But on the idea, for argument,
that the whole farm was planted in wheat,
all that this industrious family could
hope for would be return Of eleven
hundred bushels of wheat fer years
assiduous labor. In addition, unlike
California, they would have to provide
barns, the cattle needing both heat and
food. In Los Angeles county, California,
on the other hand, one hundred acres
cropped to wheat would yield from thirty
to fifty bushels to the acre. The mere
plowing and sowing would be
all that would be required. As
to the horses and mules employed
in the agricultural operations, they
would need absolutely no provision
against the weather; and all that would
be required when their work was over,
would be to turn them out to crop the
lush grasses Of the mesas. In view of
the unlimited roorbacks from the East
ern press about the high price of lands
in Southern California, it will amuse
those who know the facts to recall the
almost innumerable instances of people
who have paid for lands by single crop
in this State. In this line Santa Cruz
county furnished a parallel that would
be without precedent in any
other region than California. In
1868, when wheat reached phenomenal
figure. two energetic and industrious men,
who were worthy to belong to the old con-
quistadores OF The type Ct energy and
pluck, bought a lot of gang plows and
turned up eleven thousand acres of land
that was supposed to be absolutely worth
less. This they sowed with wheat, and,
as the result of their venture, they net
ted $250,000, paying for the land and
ranging themselves in the noble and self
sacrificing list of capitalists at one and
the same time.
At the same time that there has been 80
much talk about the high priced lands
of Southern California, there have been
several official test figures as to
the superb San Joaquin rancho, in the
southern portion Of Los Angeles county.
The highest figure in any Of the legal
sales of this rancho have been under
fifteen dollars an acre, And yet the
probability is extreme that man could
take his gang plows on this property and
make thirty dollars an acre in either
wheat or barley.
In this note of what can be done in Los
Angeles county and in Southern Callfor-
MIA we have taken simply the future
which is ahead for the farmer. We have
taken no account of the market gardener,
the viniculturist or the horticulturist. We
have left the dairy man out, and dairy
man here has from six to eight crops OF
clover yearly against the one crop, with
q slight aftermath. Of the farmer in
Orange county, New York, Or Bourbon
county, Kentucky. Above all things we
have taken no account of the phenomenal
pecuniary returns which gladden. the ad
venturous man who devotes his attention
to the semi-tropical fruits.
FROM Salt Lake City into the Wyoming
coal fields railroad ia nearly completed
When the cars on this line are running