The herald., 1894-01-01
ALL ABOUT ANTELOPE VALLEY,
An Interview With One Of Its
Residents.
He Gets Down to Business aua Tells
What He Knows.
Most Interesting Section OF Southern
OaIifornta-Ths wheels Of Frog
ress Are Rolling Rapidly
Thereabouts.

ress Are Rolling Rapidly
Thereabouts.
lBY WALTER S. MEIJcK, EDITOR OF THE
LANCASTER GAzETTE.l
They met.
Who? When2 Where?
Progress and prosperity; Happiness
and Hope. in the year Of grace. 1898, in
Antelope valley.
Again, they met.
Who? Whent7 Where?
The stalwsrt, well informed of toll
from the valley of progress and prosper
ity and happiness and hope. and the ever
alert reporter of the Los Angeles HER
AID met on Christmas day, 1898 on the
classic walks of Second street in Los
Angeles, where the able, enterprising
and independent Democratic editors,
Ayers q Lynch. write burning editorials.
The Antelope valley citizen
had his arms full of gifts
for his family and was bound for
the HERALD Office to renew his own
subscription and start the paper to
eastern friends when the srgus-eyed
pencil pusher, on the lookout for news
showing the progress af every part of
Los Angeles county and Southern Cal
ifornia, protruded his nasal extremity
in friction with that of the granger friend
and obtained the following electric cur
rent of information:
swell, Antelope, what of the year,"
was the first interrogative scintlllation
which darted out, showing that the vol
taic battery was in working order.
.'The past year has been one of vary
ing shades to Antelope valley. Like
picture reviewed from different points,
shows one time the light and green and
happier side OF nature and then looked
at again seems to be filed with clouds
and shadows, 30 this great valley pre-
eents kaleidoscopic views of its 1898 his
tory. But right in the outstart,
young man. you can put down that
l am willing to contest Antelope
valley with its progress of 1898 with that
of any other portion of Southern Cal.
ifornia or the United States. There is
no denying the fact that the psnicky
times and ruinously low prices OF pro-
ducts injured us badly as it did every
other portion of the country, hut claim
that we are hurtless,' 7sid the citizen of
Antelope valley as he set his milk pail
of presents on the curbing and expect
grated through the ring of the iron
hitching post and into the eye of pas
sing dog. s'In all that broad region
lying in the northern part of Los An
geles county and in the southern part of
Kern and extending westward to Ven
tura, surrounded on the north by the
Tehachapi mountain range which meets
the San RernsrGino spur Of the Sierra
Madre range from the south like V at
the west and opening out over the
buttes on the desert, making body of
land Rs large as the state of Rhode Is-
land, venture to say that there ia not
family or single resident who has
not enough to eat, drink, wear and
shelter himself with. l think this is
considerable when meet people every
where here on your streets striking me
for a dime or something with which
to buy food, and when | read OF the desti-
tuition ali over the country and world"
THAT is pretty good" said the scribe,
shut how did your crops yield?,
'Grain raising is our principal in
dustry yet, while our young trees are
growing. We had $4,000 acres sown to
wheat and barley. A large proportion
OF this wss cut for hay and much of it
kept either for feed and seed or stored
for higher prices. But above all this
there were shipped out 731 lotion car
loads of grain this year. This, at the
fearfully low price that we received this
year, brought in about $l20, 900 each
this season at Lancaster. With us
grain can be put in the around for $500
per acre, plowing, narrowing and seed.
1t costs $l.50 per acre to put it in
the stack, cutting and threshing. The
com bined haryesters are now largely
used.
''By this method the cutting and
threshing are done at the same time at
q minimum cost. There ere now two
steam threshers, one steam combined
harvester and Is combined harvesters
drawn by horses In Antelope valley.
''As the quality of this valleys grain
is of the beat, there is always market
for it. Seeding is far advanced now.
and there will be larger area than ever
sown. estimate it at 10000 acres this
year.
"But the wealth of our valley does net
lie in its grain, but in it's orchards and
price of grain this year is blessing in
disguise, for it will tend to break up the
grain ranches into better wealth pro-
ducing email farms"
'You speak of your fruit raising" /"
ssid the reporter. 'What have you
done in this line ?"
I'VE haven't become exporters OF
fruits and nuts yet. There are only a
few orchards old enough to bear, but
these show the quality to be unex-
celled. Our colder winters or some
thing seems to perfect the favor. We
have, according to the assessors books,
about 5000 acres of fruit trees growing
now. From a canvass of the number Of
trees purchased from the nurseries, /
expect there will be about 1900 acres
planted to fruit and nuts this season.
This will make about 5000 acres to fruit
in this valley. Isn't this pretty good,
when three years ago We had scarcely
200 acres growing ?'
Yee, that is So, admitted the bright
HERALD Interrogation point; "but what
are your standard fruits?'
First, the almond 10 our standard, and
ia it are tens of thousands OF dollars for
the valley. 1t 10 sure crop and grows
to perfection in our orchards secluded
from fogs. At four years old it begine to
bear in paying quantities, and an aver
age yield of 500, net, per acre can be
counted on every year. Some excsp-
tional orchards yield as high 5000 per
acre. We have over 1900 acres cf
almond trees growing. At Manzana, in