River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1911-02-16
CALIFORNIA LETTER
Pasadena, CAL, Feb. 8, 1911,


tainsides and the rapidly growing
grass to your vigorous and blood
tingling cold and energy inspiring
climate. Each has it's excellencies
and attractiveness and each it's dis
agreeable features But it is really
quite pleasant feature that We do
not have icy sidewalks or steps on
which to slip down or piles of snow
to shovel. 1t gets chilly here but
the air seldom has any teeth SO that
while it gives US a SILVER it does
not bite.
The early winter was very dry
and unusually warm. On one OF
your coolest days Mrs. Clough and
| drove down town about a mile
and a half, l without an overcoat
and she without wraps and we were
more than comfortably warm On
the whole, nothing could have been
more ideal than the way in which
the nearly ten inches of rain has
fallen on this section since January
9.
1t is reported that the orange crop
this winter is of more than ordinary
excellence in size and quality and
great in quantity. We get chance
to sample them from the fine or
chards of Altadena that are unexcel-
led in quality anywhere.
President Parker, who is champi-
on walker, drops in on us fire quent-
ly on his pedestrian tours and one
day startled me with the statement
that within a few miles of Pasadena,
it being the center, more fruit was
raised than in the entire state of
Wisconsin. And then the kinds of
fruit that do we'll here and which,
if one has ample room, can be rails
ed on a home lot. Not only apples
and pears and plums but peaches
and apricots, as big as the ordinary
peach, and grapes of every variety.
Loquats furnish one of the most at
tractive of trees but so natural is
the climate to every kind of fruit
except the cherry that one has to
sit down and study what is the
most desirable for himself.
When l was a boy IL years old my
guardian bought new place in
central New York, where every kind
of fruit Of the northern states
seemed to be natural and which we
set out, making a home both attract
i've and we'll supplied and when we
came to Pasadena last fall found
myself the second time asking, what
shall we plant for the future, and
this has been the study of my leis-
ure, and as January is to us what
April is to you l am putting it into
practice. l am often asked, why
set these things out at your time
of life?" But my answer is always
that of the Spanish wayfarer of
whom | read in my boyhood: An
American was tramping about
Spain when he met an old man who
had been eating peach and who
was burying the pit by the roadside
and asked him what he, an old man,
was doing that for. The quick
reply was, For the next genera
ton" While to some others l re-
tort that what one can raise himself
puts him on an equ atty with the
rich who must pay out their money
for such things.
l have often wondered why Wis
consin people do not pay more at
tention to raising such fruit as will
grow naturally in every kind of its
climate and soil and as population
becomes more dense the necessity
is more manifest.
In going about the city one is i'm
pressed by the great numbers of
new homes, nearly 700 Of which
were built in 1910. The new style
of architecture and the prolific
growth of vine plants enables one
to prepare, for small sum of
money, an attractive home accord
ing to his means and taste.
This SHOULD be an asylum to peo-
pie who cannot endure the winds
because a wind is about the
scarcest of all natural things in this
locality, a great contrast from the
Beach, where we had spent the past
four years.
do not believe that there can be
any place where it can be more
pleasant to live than here. For
twenty-five cents anything that
Los Angeles has to offer for mind
or body is within our privilege. To
the north couple of miles are the
mountains and every time we look
up from our back yard we have full
view Of Mounts Lowe and Wilson
where the Carnegie millions are be-