The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1894-03-30


morning and here we are in the Italy
of America. / said i'm my last letter
that | would tell you of Redlands and
Riverside; but what's the use, a hun
dred people have told the story before
and in Kansas they call it plagiarism
to oven think the same adjectives
some other fellow has used before.
But there may be girl or boy who
reads the REGISTER that would like
to see these cities, so I'll photograph
them in kind of Kodack way. Red
land is city of orange groves, ten
miles east of San Bernadino-It began
its existence i'm 1887, had its boom,
died and now is coming to life again
four thousand people do business here
in solid brick edifices and live in
pretty cottages that seem to nestle for
keeps on the gentle slopes and round
ed hills that are the beginning of
great mountains. We made a bar
gam with a tally no that took us all
over the city and up to Smiley
heights for 80 cents apiece. Our driv-
er was an intelligent fellow that could
tell us nothing we wanted to know so
we had to imagine that Smiley heights
is beautiful home, built 1000 feet up
the mountain side and made as pref
ty as artificial drives and walks lined
with flowers and semi tropical trees
and money can make it. We looked
down as far as our field of vision. aid
ed by our far away glasses, would
carry our sight, we saw countless
acres in orange groves, plums, grapes
down and possess the land as did the
Children of Isreal, and we went down;
but the real estate tribes who met us
said your silver and gold we will
take and you can have our vineyards
with the ''grape sickness" our orange
groves with the "black scale" our
lemon trees with their millions of I'M
coveted lemons and our clean, hand
some English walnuts with no disease
and we will throw i'm the beautiful
scenery aud magnificent climate if
only you will say to the next tender
foot who comes-Eureka. We didn't
possess, but went to San BernadinO
where wo,thought we might take an
artesian well or the Bear Valley dam,
800 feet long and 60 feet high, or the
Arrow Head hotel 1000 feet above the
sea with its boiling hot springs on one
side and its ice cold fountains on the
other and its army of monied invalids
thrown in for revenue. We left all
these things to their bankrupt owners
and went to Riverside, the home of
the orange. The place where the Ma
val orange was born. In 1872 it was
a sheep ranch. Eight years later
they sold fifteen car loads of oranges.
Thi year two thousand cars couldn't |
carry the fruit that grows in this val
ley. Here they "know how" and are
pdiu Iol II. ClOlIi tHC COLhiuOh SCCu-
ling they have evolved the seedless
that now sells az well as
the Australian Naval and from De-
cember to June the gathering goes
on. The city covers fifteen square
miles, but all that region is one sue
cession of oranges, vineyards, houses
and avenues. The prettiest of these
avenues is 125 feet wide and fifteen
miles long planted in three rows with
palms. magnolias, pepper and eu-
calyptus trees and lined all the way
with orange, lemon, peach, apricot,
prune and walnut trees, in the midst
Of which are houses and grounds with
Iioral attractions that enchant the eye
and put the soul to sleep. But still
this is no paradise. Frost sometimes
comes, the grape sickness kills the
vines and the black scale damages
The oranges. Diligence, vigilance
and labor are as much needed here as
in Kansas, money good deal more.
If / write another letter I'll tell you
Of LosADgeles, the Allen county peo-
pie that are here and maybe I'll tell
you of how I've been feasted and fat
,ened on their hospitality. w. G.