Los Angeles daily herald. [microfilm reel] (Los Angeles [Calif.]) 1884-1890, 1889-10-04

from assessors. One lister re- |
ports as follows:
sIn 1882 certain farms in our town
in 1886 the same property was valued at
where they have been sold, do not bring
the present appraisal. Probably in one
third OF this town, where there
were in the memory OF the oldest in
habitants our best farms and most pros
ing and have already gone to decay and
what was q few years ago fertile fields
are used for pasturage, and fast
growing again to timber. 1 think 1
can safely say that 1000 acres can be
purchased in this town alone, adjoining
and of this amount about one-half are in
farms of from 70 to 200 acres, and some OF
these with buildings, many of them occu-
pied, which could be bought for from So
to 81 per acre. The remaining half are
lands which formerly comprised good
farms, but with buildings now gone, and
fast growing up to timber. Some are
used for pasturage, and on other farms
the fences are not kept up. There are
miles of stone walls to testify to former
civilization, and these lands could be
bought for from 81 to So per acre. Time
for payment could be had on all these
lands"
Another says: SIN the west part of
our town and in the two towns adjoining,
there are thirty five to forty farms aban-
doned and unoccupied, many having
good buildings, and the best of them
purchasable at IS or less an acre."
Nature is healing outward wounds by
clothing the old pastures with "second
growth" and the old homes by creeping
vines, as nature heals all her hurts; but
there is no life within the old house,
and the hearthstone is left bare and
desolate. The city is growing in popula-
ton even there, for the State has gained
about 1000 year since 1850. But all
this has been at the country's cost
"a, 900 OF the population having been
taken from the rural regions and set
down in the larger towns. And Massa-
chusetts makes scarcely any better
showing. She, too, is filling up her
towns, and has small market for any
country property outside of the growing
fashion to make summer homes of these
because they are 80 cheap.
To Californians this lesson has many
pertinent suggestions. We have long
been aware of the poor case of the single
crop farmer in the old and in the new
Northwest. The discontented denizen Of
New England or the Middle States is no t
anxious to try his fortune upon the south
ern miasmatic river bottom or the storm
swept western prairies even if prospects
for good returns were much brighter than
they are. What can we fairly assume to
offer to him who wants home and will
work to keep it, as every head of family
has had to work in all time in the East
Even now, as the Centennial poet sang.
Freedoms uttermost home has been
Built in the smile of softer sky
And the glory of beauty yet to be-"
There is ne further frontier. Here The
American home-builder must make his
last stand. If home and family life are
ever to be glorihed anew it must
be better hoped for here than else.
where oa the Continent today, ii
We are to believe the current
estimate on every hand. If we are wise
cannot we offer not only more comforts
and less loss of vital force to the work.
ing man here than any eastern commun-
ity can offer, and more substantial re.
turns as we'll ? But to do this we must
put the boom and the paper town further
behind US than ever. This is a country
that broadly invites to out-of-door life.
No man wants mere town lot who lives
in a land OF sunlight. The sensible
seeker for home in California wants,
above all things, an estate that shall
have broad setting of land. He may
want something less than a farm but
hardly anything less than small orchard
or garden, or both, that may be
made beautiful and productive as
we'll, for each Of these things
goes with the other. We cannot too soon
begin the true policy, which is first to re.
cognize the fact that he who has an estate
fit for a Southern California home and
improves it in BETTING way has almost
the only class of property that is sure
to attract attention and command good
price. 1t is because sense and senti.
ment combined in it's favor that we
should urge the utmost identifying along
with the utmost productiveness of our
land. Outside Of one or two places
in this region such q thing as mere
house lot, with no setting for it, is not to
be seriously thought of by the eastern man
who seeks home for his family in such
a climate and with such productiveness
Of soil; and the first duty of every
earnest and honest citizen should be to
put behind him forevermore that policy
which has scored our beautiful territory
with streets that were never to be used,
and pierced and cruciied it with stakes.
Let us admit, let US tell-aye, let us
urge-the truth, above which nothing is
ever to be preferred. Southern Califor-
mia can ordain homes on q scale so beau
tiful and 80 productive that no other
portion of the country can compete or
compare with US, if only it will blot out
it's high-priced and useless and stiffly
laid out front foot lots, and give us back
the wealth and the beauty and the prices
that ought to attach to acres.