Los Angeles herald., 1905-09-03

Now that the people of Los Angeles
are so much interested in providing fo1
a bountiful supply of water for the
great city of the future, some specula-
way Of retrospect may prove Of inter-
est to Angelenos whether their resi-
dence has been long or short.
| 1t is to be regretted that the facili-
ties for treating the question intelli-
gently are so restricted, extending
really only so far back as the great
drouth of 1S76-77 when the rainfall
was only ASS inches, the smallest of
which we have any record since the
American occupation.
That was most disastrous year 1t
found Los Angeles county full of f1ocks
of sheep and herds of cattle and bands
of horses. The rancho San Vicente, on
which Santa Monica now stands, had
probably forty thousand sheep grazing
its bush pastures at that date. They
belonged to Col. r. S. Baker. The other
great ranches were depasturized by
similar flocks
When that drouth set in, there were
easily half million sheep in the county
besides innumerable cattle and horses.
When 1t had completed it's ravages
there was little to show of all this
Astounding animal life except hides and
pelts. Up to that time Los Angeles
was a distinctively pastoral region and
was grouped up in San Francisco as
one of the COW counties. While there
were a few orange orchards and vine
yards here and there in the city and
county-belonging to L. ]. Rose, Wolf
skill, Keller and others-most of the
coin which came into the city was for
wool and hides, cattle and horses. The
drouth of 1S76-77 changed all that.
Then a Change Came
In the fifteen years following that
grewsome dispensation the most gra-
cious era of growth known on any equal
surface of the globe set in hereabouts
and has continued up to the present
day. Much of it, of course, was con-
tingent on irrigation. but much was
also due to the abundant rain which
fell upon Los Angeles and the adjoin-
ing counties. In the fifteen years, in
elusive of the year 1S76-77 of the mini
mum rainfall Of 4S5 inches, 257.39
inches of rain fell in the city Of Los An
geles, according to the United States
official rain gauge. This was an aver
age of 17.16 inches for the year, or
about the precipitation Of the Sacra-
mento valley for the same period.
Strange to say, there are few people
who know this, and there are not
dozen of Sacramento who would not
laugh you to scorn If you were to call
his attention to this official fact.
1t was during the fifteen years, from
the great drouth to the early nineties,
that the miracles of tree growth and
genealogical and agricultural growth
were witnessed throughout Los Angeles
county and all Southern California. 1t
was in this period that Riverside, Po-
mona, Pasadena, Santa Ana and a
score Of other beauty spots came into
being, beautiful and exquisite. 1t was
some time during that cycle that Sena-
tor Thomas r. Bard quit selling bean
lands at So an acre, which afterWard
yielded the farmers $150 net profit a
year, and advanced their price to $40
and SIS an acre. 1t was a decade and
half in which all sorts of miraculous
discoveries were being made of the
capabilities and possibilities of hith-
erto disprized section.
Heavy Rainfall
During that fifteen years the highest
rainfall for single year-or season."
more properly, running from the Sep
tember of one year to the September of
another-was 3S.13 inches in the valleys
to eighty or upward on Old Baldy or
Old Grayback, and in which the Los
Angeles river and the Arroyo Seco were
miniature Mississippis.
We need another year to complete a
second decade and a half for which we
have the United States weather bureau
as basis for speculation. In the four
teen years which have already run in
the second of these seasons we have
had a total rainfall of 1902 inches, or
yearly average of 1890 inches, as
against 17.16 of the first fifteen years.
We are thus short about seventy inches
of what may be assumed to be our
normal cycle.
OF course it is absurd to look for