Los Angeles herald., 1892-11-07
THE UPPER SAN GABRIEL VALLEY,
A Sunday Ramble In and
About GlendOra.
What Water Has Done, and What
Could Be Done with More.
Scenes Between Santa Anita and the
Head OF the valley-An Immense
Orange Crop Turning From
Green to Gold.


A HERALD reporter yesterday took a
Santa Fe train bound for Glendora, as
the guest of Mr.. W. J. Thompson OF
that place. That gentleman had a
buggy in readiness for the scribe and
took him all over the country between
Glendora and Covina. The town of
Covina is q sort of divided house. Dur
ing the boom of 1886 Major George E.
Gard, the sheriff, laid off altownsite on
some land owned by him and called it
"Alosta." Mr.. George Whitcomb,
whose land lay between the majors
grounds and the Sierra Madre, plated
off townsite which he called "Glen-
dora;" and when the railroad came
along, to wake the slumbering wilder
ness and transform it into an orchard OF
30 miles in length, it chose the latter
name over the former.
The mornings drive lay to the north
and east of the town, past old Mr..
Bridges beautiful orchard of 18 acres in
Washington navels, and thence around
by the palatial residence OF Mr.. La
Fetra, who has splendid orchard OF
rapidly ripening oranges, after having
shipped away an enormous yield of
deciduous fruits. Thence westward
across the ra lway track towards very
handsome property of Judge Silent's,
upon which his son resides and has
fine bit of rapidly developing orchard.
The man who wrote book entitled,
Ten Acres Enough, must have known
something about the country living be-
tween Covina and Duarte. Here you
will find men getting good pay from
farms of six and eight acres. paying all
their bills regularly and buying nothing
on credit. Mr.. Dougherty. who lives
near Judge Silent's place. has sold over
40 tons of black berries to the canne-y at
Whittier for an average of $55 per ton
and this from patch of IL acres, with
very limited facilities for irrigation at
that.
One old fellow who had farmed in Hi.
nois in the '50's, in Kansas since the
war and at Glendofa since the collapse
of the boom, told the reporter that he
of four acres of strawberries there than
he had ever been in Illinois with 100
acres or in Kansas with twice that area.
L OIL AONOA WA0bOub lCdOy AOuCy uOW,
said he, land have not paid dollars
interest since my vines began to bear"
A little further along the reporter met
a man whom he had known in Oregon
20 years ago. On inquiripg how be was
getting along the farmer said: swell,
have less land and less care than when
you used to know me. Then I tried to
farm 400 acres to wheat, and by the
time it was sold in Liverpool and all
the charges and commissions paid, there
was nothing left for me. Now have 16
acres and what get from them belongs
to me. Then used to pay interest at
10 per cent on every dollars worth of
groceries, dry goods and clothing that
came into my house Now pay inter-
est on nothing. One acre of apricots
pays better than any seven acres OF
wheat ever planted in the Webfoot
country. with just one seventh the ex-
pense of cultivation. NY orange trees,
six years old. yielded me $l4 tree last
year and will do better this year even
with 10 per cent. lower prices. Now,
who would 90 back to the slavery of
grain farming, as when you knew me?
tell you these big ranches are hum
bug l am better off than ever before in
my life."
After a hearty farm dinner, Mr..
Thompson again brought the buggy into
requieition, and the party were whirled
away to the southeast, coming back by
the foothills road and seeing some of the
finest orange properties in the state.
Mr.. Whitcomb's orchards are a princi-
pality in themselves, but his oranges,
though very abundant, are quite small
and lipening very rapidly. This is
owing to lack of water, as that gentle
man has contract for supplying the
village with that commodity; and as
this has been an unusually dry
year, he would prefer a short crop
OF oranges to having his water franchise
cancelled. Outside of his place the
show Of citrus fruits was simply mag
nificent. The reporter visited the farms
of Messrs. w. B. Cullen, S. M. Wood
and Supervisor Cook and as an entire,
that section of orchard lands was simply
gorgeous. The soil is a rich alluvial
wash from the mountains and, having a
southern exposure, seems to be quail
fed for almost any kind of fruits, al
though walnuts seem to thrive better
about Downey and Rivera. But the up
per end of the San Gabriel valley will
compare favorablv with any portion of
the state for fruit purposes, whether
citrus or deciduous.
The conservation of water for irriga-
tion purposes is question of the near
future. With the vast amount OF snow
melting on the Sierra Madre every year,
there must soon be resort to storage
or reservoir system of artificial lakes
similar to those of Arizona and Aus
tralia: They used to say that gold was
king during the war, but now it begins
to look as if water was the head of the
royal family. The San Gabriel valley is
the great fruit garden of the continent.