The San Francisco call., 1910-06-12
ny CHARLES WESLEY REED

AM going to tell my young friends
who read The Junior Call about a
trip that l took last week to the
oil fields near Santa Maria. l feel that
know the boys and girls who read
The Junior Call because / have a little
girl Elsie, IL years old, and a little
boy Earl, years old, and they fight
for The Junior Call every Sunday
morning, SO that 1, hardly ever see 1t.
We often wonder how many children
there are that read The Junior Call;
how many there are that color the
pictures and enter into the various
contests which the editor of The Call
gets up In order to stimulate the young
and their interest in his paper
Elsie and Earl each won a box Of
paints in one of these contests.
When leave home to go off on some
of my trips into the mountains I always
take my camera with me and try to
remember all of the things which in
terest Earl and Elsie, SO that I can
tell them about it when I get back
home.
This trip that / took on Saturday,
Sunday and Monday was with three
friends. We were all interested in some
oil lands which we hope will produce
oil some day. You know that oil is
down deep In the ground, and men bore
holes in the ground over half mile
deep in order to get the oil. Sometimes
they pump It up, and at times the oil
Is forced UP by the gases in the ground.
There is one well that produced 40
900 barrels of OIL worth about $4,000,
in day. The ones that we saw only
produce 5000 barrels a day. worth
little over $4,000.
We took a train from San Francisco
at s o'clock at night and the next morn
ing were at San Luis Obispo From
there we went to Arroyo Grande on
little narrow gauge road. From there
we travelled in a surrey behind fine
team over to the Huasna valley in San
Luis Obispo county. Here the oil signs
show on the surface of the hills for
over 10 miles and many people think
that there is lots of oil in the ground.
OF course, there may not be any at al Il
but that is the chance every one takes
who bores an oil we'll
After we had looked around the,
Huasna valley some Of my friends pro-
posed that they should go fishing. We
heard that there was fine fishing up In
the mountains on the Huasna creek, so
the next morning we took two teams,
plenty of bread and butter and a frying
pan to cook the fish, IL we got any,
and started off toward the headwaters
of the Huasna creek. We came to a
barbed wire fence that was hard to
get through and we managed to lay it
down on the ground and hold it while
the horses pulled the wagons and finally
got Just as Tar as the horses ana
wagons could travel. There we all got
out and and one Of my friends stayed
behind while the two fishermen went
off and tried their luck higher up the
stream
The man who our guide was a
hunter, but he did not hunt with a
shotgun and he did not care much for
fishing His sport was bee hunting.
Did you ever know bee hunter? A
bee hunter sees the bees flying up In
the woods and he knows that a bee flies
straight to its hive. so he tracks the
bees and tries to find whore they live
and If he is skllful in bee hunting a
bee hunter has little trouble in finding
the home of the bees.
Out in the mountains the bees have
their home in hollow tree, generally,
and sometimes in caves. This bee
hunter who was with us found> two
trees almost Immediately after the fish
ermen had left us. He had a sharp ak
with him and when he found the bees
had located in the trunk of big oak
he cut hole inside of the oak and
took out all the honey that he could
get hold of, but in the first tree the