Imperial Valley press. (El Centro, Calif.) 1907-current, 1914-01-10
COvina Teacher Boosts
Imperial Valley After
Addressing Institute Here

which is big seven-passenger auto
mobile, a piano and Victrola, showing
the fine financial condition of the fam
lily which is building, as rapidly as
possible, home. AS it practically
never rains, everything is safe though
outside.
! The fine new building of the Holt
vile High School had a most familiar
look, making the traveller homesick.
A little later Professor Smith, princi-
pal, explained by saying that the
building committee investigated the
high schools all through southern Cal
ifornia, finally settling upon modi-
fication of our own Covina plan. With
no basement and the manual training
and domestic science rooms in wings
of the central building, the plan is
an excellent one, with the main lines
of the largest building those of our
own.
Imperial, Heber, Seeley (named for
the Covina man, Mr.. A. NJ. Seeley),
and where Rev. Mr.. Conley, who for
merly lived in Covina, has extensive
interests, Ell Centric, Silsbee and Ca
, lexico were each visited and each
found interesting. Ell Centre has a
business at least five years ahead of
it's size, and the Southern Pacific sta
ton at that point has a heavier bust
ness than any point between Ell Paso
and Los Angeles. Here much of the
new cotton trade centers, and while
most of the last picking had been
done in the cotton fields, still here
and there were white stretches or a
great fluffy pile in corner and every
where the clinging shreds of the crop
which promises SO much for the flu
ture prosperity of the valley. Two
great cotton gins at Ell Centre and
four at CaleXico run night and day
ginning the crop, and great piles of
bales awaiting shipment and noun
tains of seed are massed about the
busy gins, showing the tremendous ac
tivity in cotton.
A visitor leaves the valley with a
vivid impression of strong men and
earnest women building up a great
and most promising new country, con-
quering nature and adverse conditions,
building churches and fine school
buildings side by side, and planning
wisely and we'll for the future. The
cotton industry has brought in many
colored people, as the dairy interests
have the Swiss, the Portuguese and
Hindus. Everywhere are the sleek
cattle, knee-deep in the ever-present
alfalfa, and everywhere is the cream
separator, usually out of doors, near
the milking shed. One of the happi-
est remembrances of all the weeks
trip is the exquisite harmony of the
cow bells from Swiss herd, west of
| Heber, where the fine brass bells were
of six harmonious notes, and whether
/ tones, the result was enhancing.
The large state university expert
ment station on the Holtville road was
an interesting place, as was the great
date farm near Heber. At this last
place dates picked from the heavy clus-
tiers of fruit were followed by the
writer through the various processes
of sorting, cleansing, ripening and
Pumping in the steam incubator, and
final packing in dainty boxes, ready
for sale. SO many are the visitors at
the farm that but little fruit is ship
ped out of the valley, as practically
all of the output is purchased at the
little packing house.
The whole history of the valley is
remarkable, and to meet the men who
ran the engineering lines for the great
life-saving canals, the women who
went in wagons in the days when
there was no railroad, and to hear the
story of past growth in comparison
with the present tremendous promise,
is to have a new faith in the ability
of men and new appreciation of the
all-conquering faith of the pioneers.
Everywhere the people are Of fine
type, with high educational and re-
ligious convictions, and with a genu-
inc hospitality which makes the trav
eled welcome in fine new homes, the
pioneer ranch house or humble tent.
1t is great country, is the Imperial
valley, and even short trip there is
we'll worth while.
MAPV M CONAN