The Newtown bee., 1892-12-02
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
As Viewed by R. H. Smith-Causes of the Depres
 sion in Business of Oranges.-Roses and Other Flowers-A Pen Picture of River
 side

As Viewed by R. H. Smith-Causes of the Depres
 sion in Business Varieties of Oranges.-Roses
 and Other Flowers-A Pen Picture of River
 side.
 Dear BEE: It is a country of paradox es. The climate is advertised as cure all for disease, yet it is one of the most treacherous climates in the world. It is land of gold, yet workers are more plenty than work and, in Riverside at | least, business is dull. It is the home of l the orange, yet the desert sands hug the upper bank of the irrigating ditch and the wind drives the dust into every nook and cranny. The nights are quite cool, even frosty at times already, but the moons register between 80 and 90 de- grees.
 Although it is dry heat, you certain ly invite cold if you sit in draft and you need f1annels as surely as in our rug ged New England climate. l have seen old settlers with bad colds since I came.
 YET THERE IS NO QUESTION
 but that it is desirable land for pulmo- nary victims, if only they take pains to be as careful as at the East, going out doors between a. m. and p. m., and building a light fire in the living rooms at morning and night. It is pitiful to see consumptives here too far gone to be helped anywhere and there is no use in sending invalids to this sunset land un- less the family come with them. It will bring only added anguish and pain.
 The reason for the business depression of which spoke is more deeply seated than the presidential election or any for tuitous circumstance of season. There was a freeze for 10 hours at Christmas time, 1891, and those few hours cost the orange growers here hundreds of thousands of dollars.
 Take the case of one man with whom I talked yesterday. He began with little or nothing and, by selling part of his l grove had six and half acres free from ! debt.
 THEN CAME THE FREEZE, last Christmas and he saw about $lO00 | worth of oranges almost utterly ruined, and plowed nearly the whole of them under ground. Multiply this experience hundreds of times with more or less se- verify and it is easy to see why so many orange ranches are for sale and why some families, as I heard last night, are even borrowing money for living expen- ses.
 Yet orange land with trees 10 to 15 or 90 years old is held at $2000 an acre and 10 acres were recently sold at large orice. The three principal varieties of orange grown here are the navel, seed ing and Mediterranean sweet. The na- yel is an importation from Brazil, named rom the protuberance of the blossom nd of the fruit which resembles hu- nan navel somewhat and is seedless or nge propogated by budding It is al- eady ripening and will begin to be plac- d on the market by Christmas. for, as he freeze of last year was the first in 10 ears, there is
 NOT LIKELY TO BE ANOTHER or 10 years more.
 The seeding is a smaller orange, not eady for packing until February. No range is packed unless hand picked and ome of the stems cut off with the fruit. his makes windfalls valueless and they I' e under the trees, yellow as gold and Dmetimes as large as the two fist g, oc- ]