The citizen-Republican. (Scotland, Bon Homme County, S.D.) 1???-19??, 1907-10-31
A California Letter from Maj.
Robert Dol!ard.
SANTA MONICA, CAL, Oct. Is, 'O7
To the CITIZEN REPUBLICAN

| nv -AoNtSa1 SAA'3 49, W
To the CITIZEN REPUBLICAN
and Other Friends -
Twenty years.
ago today we were showed under
by a blizzard in Douglas county,
Dakota Territory, while home
stealing there, and to keep warm
in the three days furious storm fol-
lowing consumed ali u kerosene
oil and the lumber we had on hand
to build a granary to shelter u
small crop of wheat and oats to-
day we had string beans from our
own garden here for dinner. Be-
ing out of the law business we have
become practical farmers on a
small scale. W. have actually sue
ceeded during the last six months,
by liberal irrigation, in raising
enough lettuce, radishes, beets,
peas, beans, corn and potatoes to
pay for the seed we planted, and
we have a good prospect for a crop
of peas, beans and tomatoes by the
beginning of the winter months,
but | would not advise anybody to
follow u example in this locality.
We r too near the sea and the
soil is too strongly of an adobe
character to make gardening a sue.
cess, although in the interior,
about six miles distant, near San
telle where the Soldiers Home is
located, better results are obtained
for the locality supplies the people
in the Santa Monica beach settle
ments, Santa Monica, Ocean Park
and Venice, now estimated at
twenty thousand, with all their
vegetables and ship large quaint
ties to the city of Los Angeles tif-
teen miles distant.
This country is still a puzzle to
me. | think for farming purposes
| much prefer South Dakota, but
for climate this section is unmatch-
ed by any part of the United States
in which | have had experience,
and that means about all the rest
of it. We have excellent electric
railway connections with Los An
geles, which leave this beach by
three different lines which come to-
gether near the outskirts of the city
and a tunneling system there is
being built that will reduce the
time from an hour or more to TWEEN
ty minutes. The towns [ have
mentioned as skirting Santa Moni-
ca Bay adjoin eachother and we
have a five cent fare over the trac-
ton lines which connect them on
the way to the big city.
At Bristol Pier, near the south
line OF this town, at Ocean Park, Il
few blocks below it, and at Venice
are delightful resorts where thous-
ands of people from Los Angeles
gather on Sundays and other holi-
days to enjoy the surf bathing on
the sea shore, the plunge baths,
the classic music of Italian AMI
Mexican bands, and other amuse-
ments, some of which would not he
in order on Sunday in the early
Puritan days of New England.
These towns are growing quite rap
idly and the prophets of future
prosperity can foresee the time
when they, with other towns along
the beach north of us and in the
interior, will be a part of the big
city as the county and city of Los
Angeles, the same as the county
and city of San Francisco, and in-
deed Los Angeles has been such a
marvel of growth as to invite that
conclusion. In the early eighties
it had a population of about fifteen
thousand when the Southern Pa
cific railroad was built to it and
shortly after followed by the Santa
Fe. Then came a rush expansion
and boom for a few years aud a
halt with about twenty thousand
population twenty years ago, but
the halt was not long and was fol-
lowed by such a march of prosper
ity as challenges comparison. The.
city has now about two hundred
and sixty thousand people, or a