Los Angeles herald., 1892-07-28
POMONA AND HER ENvIRoNs.

When the great northerly storm OF
last winter was over, the newspapers
were filled with accounts of the damages
done to the fruit trees in Los Angeles
county, and to the citrus fruit trees in
particular. Most of these accounts agreed
in locating the storm center about the
San Gabriel valley, Riverside and Po-
mona, the latter young and vigorous
city, little more than thirteen years old.
OF course q great deal of sympathy was
manifested for the good people of that
place, at that time, but personal in
spection of the ground reveals the fact
that the storms evil effects had bee n
very much exaggerated. The orchards
all look well, and, through good cultiva-
tion and the excellent care taken of
them in every respect, exhibit unmis-
taxable evidences of vigor and thrift.
As an instance of the profits paid by
some of the orange orchards in the
vicinity OF Pomona, we will mention the
grove OF ex-Sheriff Ourrier, near Spadra.
His orange orchard contains two and
one-half acres, from which he shipped
last spring five carloads of oranges.
The first carload was sent to Minneap-
olis, and had the misfortune to arrive
there in the midst of glutted market,
so that the profit was merely nominal.
For the next four carloads he got much
better prices, so that the net profit on
the five carloads was $1,S00, or at the
rate of $720 per acre. Now who wants
to grow wheat or any other cereals when
they can get returns like these from
fruit?
The same gentleman gives us his ex-
perience in the cultivation of alfalfa.
He has sixty acres in all, of which about
two-ffths were planted while Philadel-
phia was celebrating the centennial.
The rest has been planted since, and
the average annual yield is ten tons
of hay to the acre. The lowest
price for a year has been $12 per
ton for this hay; and it frequently
goes above SIS during the winter
months. But even at $11, without ex-
pense OF baling, this would mean $110
per year without any expense of plow-
ing, narrowing or seeding after the crop
is once planted. Here is where the
profit comes in. They call it big yield
to get four tons of hay off the best blue
grass lands in Fayette, Bourbon or Scott
counties, in Kentucky; four tons of tim
othy hay are deemed exceptionally large
in Oregon and Washington, and on most
of the farms of Pennsylvania and West
ern New York they call it large yield
to get three tons per annum off red clo-
! yer lands which have to be seeded anew
every three years. This shows how fa1
Southern California is in advance of all
other portions of America, for there are
! isolated cases in this section, of lands
yielding as high as sixteen tons of hay
to the acre. Alfalfa is the only grass
with which such results are possible.
1t does man good to drive about
Pomona and Spadra, the former COM
munity scarcely thirteen years old and
yet exhibiting such evidences OF wealth
and progress as one seldom sees in
localities settled in the east in the first
quarter of the current century. 1t be-
speaks manly purpose in all the avo-
cations of daily life, a realization of that
vigorous condition which is the animat-
ing principle of nearly every one in
Southern California.