The Republican journal., 1915-09-30
Letter From California.
Crossing belmont Bar" Hard Times for
Fruit Growers. A Successful Exposition.

To THE EDITOR OF The JOURNAL: The
Sept. 9Th issue of The Journal is now
before me with my Aug. 10th letter.
How swiftly time flies, especially when
we have crossed the three score and ten
boundary. When | was kid at Bel
mont Corner l would think, oh how long
it will be until another 4th of July, or a
circus would go through. | suppose the
climate has changed in Maine same as in
other sections of our country. Thirty
five years ago when | went to North
| Dakota it was not an uncommon thing
to have 40 below zero weather during
yards when farmers ran a lire from
house to barn and had to grip it tight to
go back and forth. One winter it was
| 50 below zero. This made you think you
were mighty close to the North Pole.
But the climate has changed, and it
scarcely ever reaches 40 below now.
Billiards are things of the past. re-
member when boy of the awful storms
they had crossing Belmont Bar, and they
would rage at any season of the year.
Oh, how many wrecks have occurred on
Belmont Bar. Mrs. johnson and son
Charlie kept the light, and now it is as
safe crossing Belmont Bar as it would
be to cross any of your streets in Bel
fast. That vile compound they sold in
Maine labeled New England rum has
wrecked thousands of old Maine citi-
zens. The open:saloon, hotel, or grocery
store where liquor was sold have for
ever and ever passed away. AS l am
writing the news boys are crying out,
"South Carolina gone dry!' In 1920
the two-thirds of States necessary to
submit to vote a National Prohibition
Amendment to the Constitution of the
United States will be secured and this
awful devastating liquor traffic will be
buried and our nation free.
l congratulate you on your splendid
Industrial Supplem ant. You just seem
to have drank in our western go-ahead-
up-and-doing spirit. Such advertising
has made California this great tourist
State. l tell you it pays to advertise
anything you want to sell or to get be-
fore the public.
My last letter dealt principally with
early days of my pilgrimage IN Maine.
Perhaps l now had better tell something
of what | have seen and learned about
the Pacific coast. In your Sept. 9th is
sue read ar article Good Old Maine)
copied from the Evening Standard of
New Bedford, Mass, telling of the bad
1915 season, failure Of crops and hard
outlook for many of your farmers. l
want to send you letter of cheer. You
are not the worst off in this fair land of
ours. know that to lose hay and po-
tato crop in Maine is bad loss, for /
read in the census report of 1910 that
Aroostook county was 7th in amount of
wealth produced of all the counties of
the United States and potatoes, hay and
lumber were the chief products. Santa
Clara Valley is the greatest fruit section
of California, ITS miles square. 1t is a
complete forest, with more fruit trees in
number than the population of all the
New England States. No other such a
sight in the world. In 1912 they raised
SIP, 900, 600 worth of prunes, nearly two
thirds of all the prunes grown in the
United States. Total products over $50,
600, 900. This valley is described by one
writer as ''Sleeping Maiden fragrant
with perfume and intoxicatingly beauti-
full lying in carven bed formed by the
Santa Cruz mountains, curtained by
feecy clouds. Her coverlet of elder
down tinted with roses quilted with
green, edged with yellow, the sun kissed
water of San Francisco bay for her pill
low" AS draw near this picture of
beautiful scenery l discover that the
coverlet is an expanse Of fragrant tlos-
SONS, the edges are live oaks which
shoot their branches almost into the
clouds; the yellow is the California pop
pies that encircle the hills. 1t is the
land of delight.
But listen last year 100000 pounds
of prunes were not sold. There was no
market for only half Of a usual crop.
This season growers are selling them
from $40 to $11 per ton to drying plants
and the wholesale price now is cents
per pound dried. Peaches were sold for
SIS per ton to Gamers e cents pound
if undried) as long as they could dispose
of them. Now there is no market for
thousands upon thousands of tons and
they are feeding them to the hogs and
blowing them under for fertilizer. In
fact you Maine people don't know what
close, hard times means. This fruit land
is worth from $500 to So, 600 per acre,
most of it has to be irrigated and fertil-
lied and it costs hard on to 500 per acre
to raise crop and pay the expense of
spraying, gathering the crop and getting
it to market. The county Is overrun
with idle labor and winter is knocking at
the door. This is not overdrawn, and
you Maine farmers may cast your eyes
IL c. ,x,I ooroo1o r.