The herald., 1895-02-18
Where They Came From and
How They Came
DR.. A. DAyIDSON'S LECTURE
Archives of the Southern California
Science Association
Before the Spanish Invasion, Agriculture
Seems Not to Have Been
Followed in California.

long-Sought Ell Dorado, the Californian
coast was first discovered by Cabrillo. In
1859, more than two hundred years later,
the Spaniards founded the first mission
at San Diego, and little later that OF
San Gabriel and the oity of Los Angeles
and with the settlement of these missions
the agricultural and horticultural history
of Southern California begins.
What the state of agriculture was prior
to the Spanish settlement / have not dis-
covered, but the remains found IN the
shell heaps and burying grounds would
seem to indicate that agricultural pur-
suits were practically unknown among the
Californian Indians. That it was not
so among the Indians of Mexico
and the East we have abundance OF
evidence, historic and otherwise;
there Indian corn OF many Yarleues
was carefully cultivated. With the span,
ish invasion all was changed. Cattle ana
sheep were introduced, lands were soWn
and orchards planted and the nomadic
Indian in the process OF CIVILIZATION was
taught to till the soil. We can readily
picture to ourselves the condition OF the
country at that time, as the foothills and
more distant valleys untitled and some
almost untrodden by the foot of man,
stand today as they have, stood for ages:
Around the missions and in the CITY OF
Los Angeles orchards were planted, but
not to any great extent. The original
Spaniard, like his descendant OF the
present day, was not prepossessed IN favor
OF manual labor, nor did the Spanish
King who equipped the expedition to
found Los Angeles expect undue exertion
from them. The one implement of toll
they carried with them was hoe, and
this, with the remainder of their outfit,
Nad to be repaid in installments. With
such crude implements in the hands OF a
people SO Indifferent to tomorrow, horti-
culture and agriculture made little or no
progress, and the less as the abundance
OF sheep and cattle made tillage OF the
soil less necessary.
= Tradition informs rs that in the early
days of the missions the country was more
beautiful than now. The river was more
abundantly supplied with water, and
wound its tortuDus way to the ocean
through bright lakes and pools that mir
rored in their placid surfaces the willows
and sycamores with which it was abun-
dainty fringed. The vast plains, for rea-
sons that will subsequently make evil
dent, were studded with scant perennials,
abundance of weeds, noxlous and other
WISE with occasional tufts of grass, and
were altogether barer and more unprepos-
sessing than even now. AS 1 look back
on the condition OF the pasturage in those
days / can heartily sympathize with the
remark ascribed to Fremont, when visit
ing Washington after his first journey to
California. When asked what he thought
marked, with his characteristic vigor:
1--WE must have another war with Mex
ico.'' What for?'' ''To make them
take California back.~ He had ridden
through vast stretches of the country and
could scarcely find food supplies for his
horses.
Little as the Spaniard has apparently
60 i,,,y1 .n rf II
ture, yet he has, though in part unwit-
tingly, done more for Southern California
than the greater majority of his success
ors. The Spaniards found California
waste of weeds and shrubs; they left it
apparently only slightly improved, but by
the introduction of herbs and grasses
they laid the foundation of its immense
fertility. When the bright green mantle
of spring covering the hills and plains de-
lights your eyes with its freshness and
beauty, you doubtless think the early
pioneers were homesick grumblers to call
barren such land as, this. But
have have you oo. ever paused to ana
you tread the streets of Los Angeles, ex-
amined the herbage that threatens to OBJ
literate your paths by its profusion? |
do not think | eXaggerate when j say that
you may walk the streets of our city from
end to end and not gather blade of
udblVe grass. NntG Us true OF our streets
is true IN a great measure of our plains
and foothills. The native flowers and
shrubs still command a foothold here and
there in the struggle for existence, but
the great mass of weeds and grass is all
European. The burr clover and alfilaria
the most abundant and most cherished
grazing fodder, are not indigenous to
California, but have followed the Span
iards in their conquest from Mexico to
the Pacific coast, and, like many others
OF the more conspicuous products of cul-
tivation of which i shall speak, have
probably followed the white man in his
path of conquest from the plains of Meso-
potamla to the shores of the Western seas
i will now speak of the more obvious
products cultivated here, those with
which the country is more closely identi-
fed, and that have made Los Angeles and
California household words throughout
the civilized world. OF those products of
which l shall speak, ] do not intend to
enter into detailed disquisition on their
growth and cultivation, but shall consider
their origin, their natural affinities to
those indigenous in this country, and the
ultimate possibilities of their growth and
development in the far West. 1t is not
only of interest, but of some commercial
Importance to have an intelligent under
standing OF how and where our fruits
originated, for those generally cultivated
are almost wholly alien to the soil of
North America. OF the 247 plants and
fruits used in one form or other by man,
very few are natives of North America.
This fact, with other things, has had a
powerful influence on the evolution of
this continent but time and subject for
bid my depressing, interesting though
this topic be.
The oranges of the ancients were culti-
waited forms of the wild state, and were
two in number, the bitter and the sweet;
the former growing wild in the east OF
India, naturally made its way west at an
earlier date than the sweet, which had its
origin in China, and we first hear of it
from the Crusaders in Palestine, from
whence it was carried to Portugal, Spain
and the Mediterranean coasts. There it
has been cultivated for 800 yeaas, and to
the systematic crossing and careful selec-
ton of varieties of these two forms, we
owe almost all the different varieties we
now possess. The latest variety of the
orangef now known as the Navel was pri-
marily a Brazilian production, and seems
well suited to some districts of this coun-
try Whether or not it shall prove in the
long run the fruit of this section time
only can show, but the probability is that
some form at least of this fruit will be the
staple product of this country. Little so
far has been done to develop special fruits,
and now that the desire to plant orchards
to sell as an investment only, has passed
away, we may expect from the hands of
intelligent agrculturists new and appro-
pirate varieties suited to the soil and eli
mate.
The lemon was originally native of
the Himalayas, from whence it was car
ried to Mesopotamia and Media and
Greece; hence its name citrus medica.