Los Angeles herald., 1891-04-11


If there is man on the Pacific coast
who does not know that the figures here
given as absolutely correct are the
grossest evidence of ignorance and in
competency on the part of the enum-
orators, he is not outside the walls of
lunatic asylum. We shall just select
one item in the above table so as to
point out the absurdity of the whole.
The Pacific coast is credited with only
800 acres devoted to the growth of Irish
potatoes. Without going outside of
Los Angeles county, we can point to the
fact that at the very time when the
census agent was engaged in the task
OF successfully trying to make his mis-
sion farce, tract of 800 acres planted
to potatoes was in the course of making
a splendid crop on the Tweedy ranch,
near Folsom. Between this city and
the ocean that year there were at least
three times the acreage given in the
table above planted to potatoes, and we
may say right here, en- passant, that
railroad freight agent has assured us
that he has 2000 carloads in sight OF
potatoes to be shipped east between
this and the 1st of July. What an out
rage upon human credulity has been
perpetrated by the census agent who,
even from a billiard room in San Fran
cisco, could not have guessed" better
returns than those imposed upon the
public in the above table as having
been carefully and laboriously gathered
in the field.
1t will be news to the people of Dow
ney, of Anaheim, Of Pomona and Ell
Monte to learn that no beets are grown
in this section of the union; and Ven
tura, Santa Barbara and San Luis
Obispo will probably be amazed to find
that the bean crop, which has been to
those counties source of immense
revenue, has been simply wiped out by
the census bureau. We know one man
in Sacramento county who works over
fifty acres in asparagus, and another
who for many years has marketed the
crops of thirty-fve acres within the
limits of the city. Celery is found on
every table in California, and is one of
the most popular edibles produced in the
truck gardens of the state. To say that
the product of 116 acres would furnish
the vast amount of celery consumed on
the Pacific coast is to give publicity to
an absurdity that the slightest care on
the part of the statistical agents of the
bureau would have avoided.
But what is the use of criticising such
table in detail? When the railroad
freight statistics show that from Cali
fornia alone over 5000 carloads of the
productions which the bureau classifes
as ''farming-truck" were shipped east
last year, the gross and shameful mac
curacy OF such a publication is stamped
as simply outrageous. When the bu-
reau dealt with viticulture it was hardly
less inaccurate. 1t gave Fresno county
credit for 1880 acres of vines, which
the Expositor showed by an actual col
lection of data in the field was only
about 1000 acres short of the actual
number of acres planted in vines in that
county.
1t would be far better for the country
that the government should make no
attempt whatever to give industrial sta
tistics than to publish to the world the
mass OF worthless trash it is foisting
upon the public as correct data Of the
leading industries of our country. For
we are warranted in assuming that there
has been no greater care taken in gath
ering statistics in other parts Of the
country than was taken on this coast,
and we have seen that the reports for
this coast are utterly and absolutely un-
reliable, and therefore worse than value
less. They are, on the contrary, a posi-