The Opelousas courier., 1891-01-03
LAND OF FRUIT GARDENS.
THE WONDERFUL PRODUCTIVE
NESS OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA.

Supposed to be Worthless Except for
Grazing-Baren Wastes Made to
Blossom Like the Rose.
Southern California has been slowly
understood even by its occupants, who
have wearied the world by boasting of
its productiveness. Originally it was a
vast cattle and sheep ranch. 1t was sup
posed that the land was worthless except
for grazing. Held ia princly ranches of
twenty, fifty, one hundred thousand
acres, in some cases areas larger than
German p~rincipalities, tens of thousands
of cattle roamed along the w~atercourses
and over the mesas, vast focks of sheep
cropped close the grass and trod the soil
into hard-p The owners exchanged
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 a
garden or q fruit orchard. It was the
firm belief that most of the rolling mesa
land was unfit for cultivation, and that
neither forest nor fruit trees would grow
without irrigation. Between Los Angeles
and Redondo Beach Is a ranch of 81, 200
acres. Seventeen years ago it was owned
by a S~eotchman, who used the whole of
it as a sheep ranch. In selling it to the
present owner ne warned him not to
waste time by attempting to farm it; he
raised no fruit nor vegetables, planted
no trees, and bought all his corn, wheat
and barley. The purchaser. however, be-
gan 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 the citrus fruits.
On this route to the sea the road is
lined with gardens. Nothing could be
more unpromising IN appearance than
this soil before it is plowed and pulver-
lied by the cultivator. It looks like a
barren waste, We passed a tract that
was offered three years ago for twelve
dollars an acre. Some of it now is rented
to Cinnamon at thirty dollars an acre; and
Isaw one field of two acres off which a
Chinaman had sold in one season $3.50
worth of cabbages.
The truth is that almost all the land
is wonderfully productive if inteligently
handled. The low ground has water SO
near the surface that the pulverized soil
will draw up sufficient moisture for the
crops; the mesa, if sown and cultivated
after the annual rains, natures grain and
J corn and s~ustains vines and fruit trees.
1t is singular that the first settlers should
never have discovered this productive
ness. When it became apparent-that
is productiveness without artificial water
ing-there spread abroad a notion that
irrigation generally was not needed. We
shall have occasion to speak of this more
in detail, and I will nov only say, on
good authority, that while cultivation,
not to keep down the weeds only, but to
keep the soil stirred and prevent it bak-
ing, is the prime necessity for almost all
land in southern California, there are
portions where irrigation is always neces-
sary, and there is no spot where the yield
of grain will not be quadrupled by ju-
dicious irrigation. There are places
where irrigation is excessive and harm
full both to the quality and quantity of
oranges and grapes.
The history of the extension of cult
walton in the last twenty and especially
in the past ten years from the foothills
of the Sierra Madre in Los Angeles and
San Bernardino Counties southwark to
San Diego is very curious. Experiments
were timidly tried. Every acre of sand
and sage-brush reclaimed southwark
was supposed to be the last capable of
profitable farming or fruit-growing. It
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
marvellous results. From San B%ernardino
and Redlands, Riverside, Pomona, On
tario, Santa Anita, San Gabriel, Pasa-
dena, all the way to Los Angeles, is al
most a continuous fruit-garden, the
green areas emphasized by wastes yet
unreclaimed; a land CT charming cot
tages, thriving towns, hospitable to the
fruit Of every cline; a land of perpetual
sun and ever-fowing 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 condi-
tions of soil and climate are essentially
everywhere the same, and capitals find
ing out how to store in and bring from
the Businesses Of the mountains rivers of
clear water taken at such elevations that
the whole arabic surface can be irrigated.
The development of the country has only
u..9a 1Emau.sna