The Montgomery advertiser., 1908-08-16
EARTH HAS HOT SPOT
CALIFORNIA; MUSTARD BLOOM
 LIKE SEA OF WAVING GOLD.
Warm stun is the Rule--CradIe of Mustard Plaster and Salad Dresa- ing and Ruined Site of old
 Missions.


 'Yes. sir, about two-thirds of the mustard plasters of the United States call this valley home" said citizen of Lompoc. Cal, to New York Post correspondent. "It is not very aes- thetic to put it that way. but you will note that this town has two banks. eight or ten churches. and an air of prosperity, and that means mustard. We raise here about two-thirds of the mustard used in this country. and ship enough to make us better known than some cities, of fifty times our size. Lompoc is hot stuff We have no sa- looms. When man gets that yearning we say, Come and take a plaster with me- There was more or less joking in this, which goes without saying; but the fact remains that Lompoc raises about two-thirds of the mustard used in the United States.
 To find 1t. you keep to the right on the way up the coast from Los An geles to San Francisco, and it is near ly half way.
 The train has for some time been rushing along in seeming river of gold. Sometimes the river appears to overflow it's banks and spread out for acres, yet, for miles. real field of the cloth of gold, apparently winding its way around the world so far as you can see. The golden river is the mus tard in bloom. Its tufts of blossom rise, according to season, to a height of from four to i've feet, a solid mass of brilliant golden yellow. the most beautiful thing to be seen in Califor- mia, if you are fond of blazing splendid color which seems to be born of the sun god.
 This river of gold, which environs the track, continues until you reach a long, wide. deserted beach cut in the center by one of the big rivers of Cal ifornia, the Santa Ynez, which rises back in the mountains some sixty miles away.
 In various parts of the State you meet mustard and its golden sheen in March and April, but there it is grow ing wild, racing up the sides of steep canyons away from the main range, filling little valleys, always beauti- full; but in the Valley of the Santa Ynez 1t is cultivated and planted, not by the acre, but IbyIthe square mile; in fact, you see but little else. and the sight of hundreds of acres of golden mustard Is one to remember. for there is nothing quite like it and the man who invented the term Held of the cloth of gold" must have known such a field, or the poppy" fields of South ern California.
 The valley spreads out wider and Wiuers merging lnbO tlS ulliS, anu GN- anywhere level and beautiful, the Santa Ynez in the center overfowing here and there with rivulets; doubtless to irrigate the mustard. A prosperous looking farm house is seen now and then in the center of a gold leaf a mile square-you can think of no other com parison-then another ranch house, surrounded by the richest of green hues, still mustard, mustard before the flower has appeared. On the hilisides the mustard sweep upward like a flame, covering the slopes, the blos- som adding to the brilhancy of the val ley. One intelligent Mexican. the de- seendant of a man who formerly owned nearly the entire country, spoke of the old times in a philosophical way. "The Spanish are too lazy for the Rringo; they have no show. Spain and the Spanish are in their decadence; they reached their prime two centuries ago! They are down; and in about two cen turies more of trusts and graft" he said, laughing, "the Americans will be in the same fix the Spaniards find themselves in today"