Los Angeles daily herald., 1889-03-18
OUR FARMING INTERESTS
How the Country Looks
These Spring Days.
A L0ROUS ECT,
A Promise of an Abundant Harvest.
Preparations for the Future.
Needed Changes.

Los Angeles county stands to-day at
the head of the very finest agricultural
sections in the whole known world. For
II years such thing as scant rainfall,
or any other unfavorable influence has
been an unknown quantity hereabouts.
Here to day the country stands near the
close of the winter, or rather of the rainy
season, with a downpour OF nearly six
inches tor the equinoctial storm, and OF
nearly twenty inches for the season. For
a dozen years the rainfall has ranged at
from fifteen to forty inches for the
season and for the different locali-
ties, the precipitation being much
heavier near the mountains than on the
plains.
And the farmers have taken good
care to put large acreage under crops
this year. All over the county the fields
now stand carpeted with springing grain.
A member OF the HERALD staff, in the
last two weeks, has traversed a large
part of the area of the county, and he
has met everywhere abundant evidence
of the revival of agricultural industries.
Never has there been before so large an
area seeded to barley, oats and wheat.
These crops are all in most
promising condition. The grasses on the
mesas are foot high, and the flocks
and herds simply revel in the fatness of
the pastures. There is a large acreage
prepared for corn, and in some instances
this cereal is already in the ground.
The outlook from all this is that the
coming harvest will be one of great
abundance. Where the soil is we'll cul-
tivated from this on, corn will ma
ture in abundant measure without
drop OF water. The other cereal
crops will be large beyond meas
urement. The pastures on the naesas
will be green until July, and there will
be plenty of feed on the ground until the
new crop starts up next fall. On damp
lands, like the Alamitos ranch, there
will be green feed all the year round.
The vignerons are doing great deal
among their vines. Pruning has been
finished and the soil is in excellent con-
dition. In many vineyards men were
busy applying the new remedy for the
vine disease, which is mixture Of blue
stone and lime. 1t is laid on about the
roots and on the stem of the vine with a
small brush.
AS for ee-planting it is simply aston
ishing the number of fruit and other trees
being planted. The orange groves are
being greatly extended all over the
country. Never was there better year
for planting trees. The ground is moist
TO its lowest depths, the weather is mild
without forcing heat, there is every
proba 1ility that more rain will fall be-
fore the end of the current month, and
that there will be refreshing showers in
April. Ninety-nine per cent. of the trees
set out this season will flourish where
they are properly attended to.
WORK FOR THE FUTURE.
/ All this is most promising, but there
| is a dark side to the prospect, too.
There is a pressing demand that some
| thing be done at once TO insure better
prices to the producers. The soil of the
section is most fertile. The climate is
mild beyond precedent elsewhere. The
vines are nearly always timely and
abundant. But there is gross neglect of
some industries on the part of the farm
ers hereabouts, and there is much fric-
ton in getting crops to the market in
many cases. Here is story which
lputs all the community to
shame: Three crops of potatoes
may be harvested in a year from the
same patch of land in this county. There
are new potatoes in the market in this
city to-day. The free sandy soil around
Glendale and Tropico, six to ten miles
north of Los Angeles, is the finest in the
world for the growth of the succulent
tubers. Well, under these circumstan-
ces one might very reasonably expect to
| find potatoes Of domestic growth in this
district. But last week a man entered
the store at Tr9pico to buy a sack
of potatoes. Imagine his surprise
to be told by the storekeeper
that he had most excellent potatoes
from Oregon. Shades of Cincinnatus
and of the Emperor Diocletian! Think
of paying $1.75 per hundred for spuds
from the land of the web-feet, at Tropico
Men and brethren, there will be no re-
vival of the boom until Los Angeles stops
paying toll to Portland for the potatoes
used here.
| This section can produce all its own
cereals, and sell thousands of tons to the
outside world. 1t can produce all
ite own potatoes aud ship them
in carloads to the East in winter.
1t can produce it's own butter and cheese,
it's own vegetables of all sorts, all its
own fruits, wool, leather, aud much
lelse, and have plenty to spare for the
country all around. The boom will not
return until the soil is made to give up
its riches by wise and industrious enter
prise.
| MARKETING CROPS.
But the fault is not all with the pro-
ducer. The merchants of this section
need to cultivate a little broadness be-
tween the eyes. They should not
be guilty of their prototype of
the fable who killed the goose that laid
the golden egg. For an Anaheim farmer
who heard HERALD reporter tell the
story of the potatoes from the land of the
webfeet, and who also heard him utter
the fact that corn was retailing in Tropico
for 81, 60 hundred, said
l am raising as good potatoes as ever
you ate, but cannot sell them. Iwould
be glad to get so cents hundred for
mine.
Anaheim is only 40 miles from
Tropieo, and Portland is 1,200 miles
or more. So there is big screw loose
here. The same Anaheim granger said
that he would be glad to sell the corn in
mis- crib for seventy-fve cents hundred.
but that he could find no merchant in
his town to buy the crop. Here is an.
other loose screw of great magnitude.
These stories recall to the mind of the
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