The morning call., 1890-11-03
THE EVOLUTION
OF OUR ITALY.
Southern California as Seen by
Charles Dudley Warner.
TIE Country Once Only a Grazing Field
Changed Into Land of Gardens-Pre-
dictions for the Future,

IL
part of this State, has reduced his
impressions to writing and has had them
printed in the current number of Harper's
Magazine under the title of sour Italy"
The following cuttings from this article
writer entertains Of that portion of the
Golden State:
Southern California has been slowly I'M
derstood even by its occupants, who have
wearied the world with boastirg of its pro.
ductiveness. Originally it was vast cattle
and sheep ranch. 1t was supposed that the
land was worthless except for grazing. Held
in princely ranches OF twenty, fifty one
hundred thousand acres, in some cases
areas larger than German principalities,
tens of thousands of cattle rcamed along
the watercOurses and over the mesas, vast
flOcks of sheep cropped close the grass and
'trod the soil into hard-pan. The owners ex-
changed cattle and sheep for corn, grain and
garden vegetables; they had no faith that
they could grow cereals. and it was too
much trouble to procure water for garden
or fruit orchard. 1t was the firm belief
that most Of the rolling mesa land was
unfit for cultivation, and that neither for
est nor fruit trees would grow without
irrigation. Between Los Angeles and Re-
dondo beach is a ranch of $1,000 acres. Seven
teen years ago it was owned by Scotch
ranch. In selling it to the present owner
he warned him not to waste time by at
tempting to farm it; he himself raised no
fruit or vegetables, planted TO trees and
bought all his corn, wheat and barley. The
purchaser, however, began to experiment.
He planted trees and set out orchards which
grew, and in a couple of years he wrote to
the former owner that he had 5000 acres in
fine wheat. To say it in a word, there is
scarcely an acre of the tract which is not
highly productive in barley. wheat, corn,
potatoes while considerable parts of it are
especially adapted to the English walnut
and TO citrus fruits.
On this route to the sea the road Is lined
with gardens. Nothing could be more I'M
promising in appearance than this soil be-
fore it is plowed and pulverzed by the Gull
tivator. IL looks like barren waste. We
passed tract that was offered three years
ago for twelve dollars an acre Some of it
now is rented at thirty dollars an acre.
The truth is that almost all the land Is
wonderfully productive if intellgently ham
died. The low ground has water so near
the surface that the pulverlzed soil will
draw up sufficient moisture for the crops
the mesa il sown and cultivated after the
annual rains, natures grain and corn, and
sustainS vines and fruit trees 1t is singu-
lar that the first settlers should never have
discovered this prOductveness. When it
became apparent-that is, productiveness
without artificial watering-there spread
abroad notion that irrigation generally
was not needed. We shall have occasion TO
speak Of this more in detail, ami will now
only say, on good authority, that while cul-
lYatlon, not to
KEEP DOWN THE WEEDS
Only, but to keep the soil stirred and pre-
vent its baking, is the prime necessity for
almost all land in Southern California,
there are portions where irrigation is always
necessary, and there is no spot where the
yield of fruit or grain will not be quad
rupled by judicious irrigation. There are
places where irrigation Is excessive and
harmful both TO the quality and quantity of
oranges and grapes.
The history of the extension of cultivation
in the last twenty, and especially in the past
ten years, from the foothills of the Sierra
Madre In Los Angeles and San Bernardinc
counties southwark to San Diego is very
curious. Experiments were timidly tried.
Every acre of sand and sagebrush
reclaimed southwark was supposed
to be the last capable of profit
able farming or fruit growing. 1t is unsafe
now to say Of any land that has not been
tried that it is not good. In every
valley and on every hillside. on the
mesas and in the sunny hooks in the
mountains, nearly anything will grow,
and the application of water produces mar
velous results. From San Brrnardno and
Redlands, Riverside, Pomona. Ontario,
Santa Anita, San Gabriel, Pasadena, all the
way TO Los Angeles, is almost a continuous
fruit garden, the green areas emphasized by
wastes yet unreelaimed; land of charming
cottages, thriving towns, hospitable to the
fruit of every cline a land of perpetual sun
and ever-howing breeze, looked down on by
purple mountain ranges tipped here and
there with enduring snow. And what is in
progress here will be seen before long in
almost every part OF this wonderful land,
for conditions of soil and climate are essen
TALLY everywhere the same, and capital is
finding out how to store in and bring from
the businesses of the mountain rivers of
clear water taken at such elevations that
the whole arabic surface can be irrigated.
The DEVELOPMENT OF the country has only
just begun.
Winter as we understand it east of the
Rockies does not exist. / scarcely know
how to divide the seasons. There are at
most but three. Spring may be said to be-
gin with December and end in April; sum-
mer with May (whOse DAYS, however, are
often cooler than those of january and end
with September; while October and No
vember are 4 mild autumn, when nature
takes partial rest and the leaves of the
deciduous trees are gone. But how shall
we classify climate in which the straw
berry (none yet in my experience equal to
the Eastern berry, my be eaten in every
month Of the year and ripe figs may DO
say OF a frost ian affair of only an hour just
before Sunrise) which is hardly anywhere
severe enough to disturb
THE DELICATE HELIoTRoPE,
And even in the deepest valleys where it
may chill the orange will respect the bloom
of that fruit on contiguous ground 80 or 100
feet higher. We boast about many things
in the United States, about our billiards
and our cyclones, our foundations and our
areas of low pressure, our hottest and orr
coolest places in the world, but what can
we say for this little corner which is prac-
tically frostless, and yet never had sun
stroke. knows nothing of thunder-storms
which is so warm that the year round one is
tempted to live out-of-doors, and so
cold that wooden garments are never
uncomfortable? Nature here, in this
protected and petted area, has the
knack of being genial without being ener-
yatIng, OF being stimulating without "brac-
ing person into the tomb. l think it con-
ducive to equanimity of spirit and tn lon
gevlty to sit In an orange grove and eat the
fruit ard inhale the fragrance of it while
gazing upon snow mountain.
The time is not distant when this corner
OF the United States will produce in abun-
dance, and year after year without failure,
all the fruits and nuts which for a thousand
years the civilized world of Europe has
looked to the Mediterranean to supply. We
snail not need any more to send over the
Atlantic for raisins, English walnuts,
almonds, figs. olives, prunes, oranges, lemons,
lines, and variety of other things which
we know commercially as Mediterranean
products. We have all this luxury and
wealth at our doors, within our limits. The
orange and the lemon we shall still bring
from many places; the date and the pine
apple and the banana will never grow here
except as Illustrations of the climate, but it is
difficult to name any fruit of the temper ate
and semitropic zones that Southern CalifOr-
MIA cannot be relied on to produce, from the
guava 10 the peach.
1t will need further experiment to deter
mine what are the more profitable products
Of this soil. and it will take longer experience
to cultivate them and send them to market
in perfection. The pomegranate and the
apple thrive side by side, but the apple is
not good here unless it is grown ut an ele-
walton where frost is certain and occasional
snow may be expected There is no Ion ger
any doubt about the peach, the nectarine,
the pear, the grape, the orange, the lemon,
the apricot and SO on; but l believe
that the greatest profit will be in the prod
ucts that cannot be grown elsewhere in
the United States-the products to which we
have long given the name of Mediterranean
the olive, the fig. the raisn, the hard aud
soft shell almond and the walnut The or
aDge Will. of course no cfanla apd NON