Los Angeles daily herald., 1888-04-21
There is mo CoIiapse.

Eastern papers which persistently re-
port our "boom" as having collapsed.
The reasoning of our neighbor at the
Bay City on this theme is most sound
and judicious in all respects but one.
In trying to prove that the progress OF
the State goes on in all substantial
enterprises he is quite correct, until
he reaches the "three Southern
counties'-meaning Los Angeles, San
Bernardino and San Diego. OF us he
says:
AS far as the three southern coun-
ties of this State are concerned, they
were invaded by an army OF Eastern
exiles, driven out by stress of weather,
in search OF a ife-saving climate, and
they found it. In sheer gratitude and
wonder they did for time transfer
their hectic condition to the real es-
tate market, and advanced prices to
the utmost. A slight reaction has re-
suited, and a few people who have not
the patience to stay in with their in
vestments are vocal with desire to
get out, and the market is quiet. But
all this has about as much to do with
the rest of California, as a sugar beet
growing at Alvarado has with the sill
yer pavements of the New Jerusalem.
Productive California. resorted to by
home seekers, has merely received its
normal share of that moving wave of
population, which has been slowly
rolling westward across this continent
since the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth
Rock.
Further on the Akd remarks:
All that the Eastern press can say
will not tarnish the enthusiasm OF
those who come and see and are con-
quered. From Kern county to Shasta,
along line six hundred miles long.
the valleys and the foothills are under
an approving inspection by visitors
who mean business. Their eyes are
their market, and they find that here
an acre yields as much as ten acres
in the East, and that with twenty
acres they can make as much as two
hundred there, and they will have the
twenty acres even ii it cost them as
much as the two hundred. And this
is why many a stony farm in New
Engi and or stumpy farm in New
York, or prairie farm in Illinois is be-
ing turned into a holding
of one-tenth its acreage in Cali
fornia, with perfect confidence.
This is all most excellent if it were
not for the undertone of disparagement
INDUCED in in regard to the three
southern counties" We do not think
that our amiable contem porary means
to disparage our section. The writer
has probably never seen our valleys
and plains. He does not know what an
almost limitless expanse Of most fer
tile soil there is in these "three
southern counties"
AS for our own county of Los An
geles, it is the greatest injustice to
slight her claims in any programme
wherein industrial affairs figure. In
the first place our climate makes
succession Of crops in each year posi-
ble, That cannot be said OF any
county north of the "three Southern
counties" which the Ah0 dismisses
with so little consideration. Here
is cline where Strawberries
ripen twelve months in the year,
where six crops OF alfalfa hay per
annum are cut, where three crops of
potatoes mature in each twelve
months. Tomatoes and peas ripen
here in January.
In these ''three southern coun-
ties," too, there is the home Of the
citrus family of fruits, whose net profits
run as high as $500 per acre. Some
OF our little railroad towns, as Ana
helm, ship one hundred cars of
oranges year, and the few growers
in the vicinity pocket 10000 for the
crop. This is a result no county
north OF the Southern three" can
boast.
Nor is it these exceptional and rather
poetic complexions alone for which
our county is remarkable. In 1886
Los Angeles County produced $1,000
tons of wheat. Only five of the fifty
two counties in the State report as
large crop OF this staple cereal. In
our production OF barley we rank as
high, while our corn crop stands un-
rivaled among all the counties OF Cal.
ifornia. For hay, for pasture, for
gardens, for each and all the agricul-
tural industries We challenge compar-
ison with any section OF this State, or
of any State.
And it is as ungrateful as it is unjust
for the people of the upper country to
try to belittle Los Angeles. To the
mind Of the average Fastener, Los
Angeles is California. Many of the
Eastern people never heard the name
of any other city or county in the
State. Those to whose mind the name
of San Francisco is strange, know Los
Angeles as household word. 1t was
the fascination Of our orange groves
and climate which, like magnet, first
drew Eastern people to these shores.
The upper country never did get any
thing more than the overfowings of
our immigration, and they never will
get much more. Had it not been
for the magical attraction Of this Sec
tion the big tide of tourists never
would have reached this Coast.
Thus it is unwise, as it is migrate
L