The Republican journal., 1907-12-05
LETTER FROM SAN DIEGO.
The Home-Making of Waldo County Peo.
pie in Southern California.


pie in Southern California.
SAN DIEGO, CALF, Nov. 20, 1907.
The old parting speech formula, "let us
hear from you when you get settled"
came with a decided ring of earnest
ness to our ears months ago as we left
Waldo county for an indefinite residence
in Southern California. The sunny
South" of California, meaning general
ly, for tourists and recent settlers, the
coast region, held for us no one stopping
place of more interest than another,
and when we learned the ticket rate
was the same for San Diego as for San
Francisco, the funny one of the party
at once ordered the tickets made out
for the jumping off place" of the
coast, AS getting more miles for the
money. Of all the Spanish saints and
their name places San Diego meant
nothing to us but city and county
which we would investigate to find con-
ditions for home which was to in
social life and even scenery, to be had
and held for family of modest means.
Arriving in said city in January after
an unusually cold season at home-in
which the ticket buyer to San Diego
averred that he had frozen and come
back to life seven times-we of course
went into the prescribed rapture in-
duced by the delights of semi-tropical
winter From hilltop where we found
lodgings we looked over superb bay
with distant islands, green, undulat-
ing country, its canyons and hillsides
aglow with flowers, gardens of scented
roses, which at first drove all thrifty
and PRACTICAL ideas from our heads
But when home making began it meant
more than the time of our lives, in the
| slangy sense. 1twas not trying period,
but decidedly novel, not to say spectac-
ular, to see sage brush removed from
I! virgin soil, a bungalow reared, garden
made and planted to shrubs, seeds and
vines that grew and went on growing
| like Jacks beanstalk, with no check Of
freezing winter or burning summer.
| Four miles from the city of San Diego,
| but within its limits of car lines, fine
| boulevards and roads, the mountain
water piped to our house and gardens,
we sit under the ever-blooming morn
| oil aS lot
ing in the glitter of the islanded bay or
the CLINT of snow on the distant jagged
mountains. This much of our environ
ment and of our satisfaction in a elm
ate invigorating to weak old age or deli
cate childhood. AS to city rates, taxes
are s125 per 500, with new building
values of over a million and half in
the past year. The churches, banks
and public schools are of the best, COM
mensurate with cultivated and cosmo-
polltan population of over 10000.
| South of US the Pacific terminus of
the Tehuautepec railroad and the Pan
anna canal with their great commerce
will make San Diego their first port of
call. Besides the Santa Fe, the San
Diego and Arizona railroad, now in con-
struction is to connect with the great
eastern lines and will cross Imperial
Valley in this county with its half mil
lion acres irrigated by the Colorado
river, the rich, new soil producing mar
velously.
San Diego county has vast resources
in precious stones, olive, orange and
lemon orchards, and the industry of silk
raising.
The part of the city in which we now
reside is a money-maker for the small
producer of garden fruits, as well as for
the chicken rancher.
The rainy season has not failed for
years, and with the abundance of water
piped from the mountains there is en-
sured a splendid growth every day in
the year.
This slight account of the conditions
of prosperous, growing country is en-
tirely inadequate to convey the writer's
enthusiasm, but will be of personal in
terest to old neighbors. M.E.F.