The Leon reporter. (Leon, Iowa) 1887-1930, 1909-10-07
California Letter.

Mrs. w. T. Lane, of Woodland, re-
ceived the following interesting let
ter from her brother, J. M. Cain,
resident of Santa Ana, California,
who is well known to many of the
older residents of this county, and
we are permitted to publish it so
that all of his friends can hear from
him:
Santa Ana, Cali, August 90, 'O9.
Dear Ida and Tom: How are you
all, Its getting about my annual
time of year to write, so thot
would commence with you this time.
l am about as stout now as / ever
was, although l was pretty tame for
long time. The rest of the folks
are all o. X. except Willard, he has
little poisoning caused from poison
oak that he got up in the mountains
last week, nothing severe though al
though it is very disagreeable, we
were up in the hills trying to get a
deer but could not get one.
l saw in the Leon Reporter the
other day that Morris Lane was
playing ball with Lamont, I was glad
to know that he is coming out as
good ball player. He has the breed
ing to become good sport if he
just takes a little patience. Morris
had better come to California and
take a course in the University of
California and then you can have
chance to develop yourself in all
kinds of sports, and at the same time
have the advantage of a good uni
versity, located in as good town
and county as the sun shines on
Now some think that a student had
ought not to give time to sports; to
show that they are not bad every
student that took part in athletics
passed their examination successful
ly, while many that did not failed,
drones do not make good athletics
nor good students.
/ would like darn we'll to see all
of you here, although you might not
be satisfied with this country, on the
account of the difference in all kinds
of farming and work, but after you
learn this country / know you could
not be persuaded to even think Of
ever living in the east again. would
like If you could be here the first of
October then is when we have our
parade of products from the first to
the fifteenth of October, it will be
worth your coming all the way from
Iowa to see.
There is more people here from
Iowa than any other state, Iowa is
an incubator to grow people for Cali
fornia, we have an Iowa picnic every
year, and thousands register from
all over the state, showing right
where each one are from.
Now want to reason with you
just a little, we will commence on
January 1, what are you doing in
Iowa then? We are harvesting our
celery, oranges and lemons. What
are you doing on March L? We have
most all our spring crop planted, gen.
eral activity through the country,
what about July 1, little uneasy
about the weather I guess; slightly
warm, little too wet or little too
dry? We have all kinds of vegeta-
bles and a great variety Of fruit,
sugar beets are nearly ready to harv-
est, celery planting has commenced
people are camping at the beach and
we know they are not going to get
rained on, nor no cyclone to be
scared at, what are you doing Octo-
Der 1? You know by that time what
you have had the rest of the year
and not until then, you are then en-
joying the incest part of your season,
if it was all October it would not be
SO bad but you are beginning to
think about winters wood and over
shoes and the devil knows what all
| for winter. Our season is just the
J same it has been all the time, ex-
cept we may expect shower from
now on occasionally until about
March 1, it don't rain much, oul
average is only about fifteen inches
a year, 80 you see that can't be very
bad, so now if the state line divid
ing Iowa from California was the
same as the Missouri line do yor
think you would stay on the Iowa
side? If you did you had ought tt
freeze to death, smother, blow ava.
in a cyclone, or get drowned in /;
food, why don't you come and SCI
US. Send the boys, let them see thu
country.
1 want to tell you few thing
about Los Angeles. 1t is now a cit.
of three hundred and fifty Thousand
people, it has annexed San Padre
and now has as good harbor as
needs, as all the boats on the Pacifi
coast could find accommodations a
one time inside it's harbor, wha