The Ocala evening star. [volume] (Ocala, Fla.) 1895-1943, 1919-07-26
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
Riverside, Calf, July Is,

Riverside, Calf, July 10.
Editor Star: l invite you to drive
with me this afternoon through this
fine town. We will spin over some of
its broad asphalt streets and down
some of it's avenues lined with palms,
eucalyptus, Australian oaks, acacia,
cedars and pipes. The pretty homes
that border our way are nestled IN
bowers of shrubbery.
But our time is too limited, and we
cannot traverse the 800 miles of as
phalt streets within the limits of this
town, that lead in unbroken lines out
into the rich valley that surrounds US;
much less have we time to follow
those superb country roads lined
with the same trees and similar type
of homes. The country over which, we
would pass would appear little less
urban than the city we left with its
500 acres of orange groves within its
corporate limits. Out in the valley we
would pass from one town to another
without realizing it, and our little
sightseeing trip would thus be pro-
tracted for weeks. The unbroken
thread of beauty would lead us many,
many miles; to the sea on the west,
and near the Mexican border on the
south, and up the valleys to the
north; and on the east is only broken
| by the unconquerable parts of the
Mojave desert, from the outlying
parts of which desert all this beauty
and wealth is reclaimed.
But you have not time to view in de-
tail this broad valley with its nice
homes, it's thousands of acres of farm
crops, peaches, apricots, English wal
nuts. grapes, ETC., together with it's
22, 600 acres of citrus fruit trees.
So, from the top of little rusty,
treeless mountain, short mile from
here, would ask you to look this
country over. We can speed up that
little mountain over a good but wind
ing road, and as we wind our way up
it's grades the valley appears to sink
and spread out before US, and now and
then we get iii line with those endless
rows of giant palms and eucalyptus
that grace and adorn the avenues and
roads; you follow those tree lines till
vision fails in the far distant mitss.
From the vantage ground of this
eminence the splendors of the pano-
rama compensate you for the loss of
detail. Across your entire northern
horizon, some twenty miles away, lie
the San Bernardine mountains. Their
blue sides and broken crests stand out
against the azure of the northern sky.
n The solid mass of green fruit trees
you fancy your eye can trace to the
very foot of those distant peaks. The
thick groves and orchards of the val
ley have become a vast green carpet
that spreads before you.
You see winding its way through
this the channel of what is, in wet
weather, the Santa Ana river. The
smoke of other towns and villages
now and then dims your view.
!. Toward the east, west and south
this picture of industrial verdure is
here and there broken by small, tree
less, gray mountains to the lower
edges of which that. green carpet
clings with its golden fruit.
) In the view before you the contrast
! between the nearer rusty looking
desert mountains and the green car
pet of the valley is not unpleasant.
t You look down upon the city we
have left, upon the nearer groves and
orchards, upon the white bodies of the
/ giant eucalyptus and palms towering
? above all else. One is reminded OF
2 Cuba, where stately royal palms with
their shining white bodies lift then
crested heads far up above the trop,
ical jungle.
But here all is order and precision
/ the long lines of mammoth trees
!, some of which appear to you in the
E distance, as mere hedges, proclaim
the work of man.
e Why mar this picture by saying
e that the troubles of the citrus fruit
: grower here are many? Why tell Of
Y his labors to combat or overcome hi!
difficulties Why. mention that a few
Il years ago four million boxes of HI:
;. golden fruit were frozen? Rather le
!. US for the time forget the troubles o.
the valley we have left.
t And would that it might always b,
: thus with those who have climbed th'
hill of life and that to them only tn,