The Colville examiner. [volume] (Colville, Wash.) 1907-1948, 1922-01-21
John B.SIater Tells
About California
Bay Country Around San
Francisco Has Many
Interesting Features

Francisco Bay possesses features of
interest to the traveller almost too
numerous to mention. 1t is a beau
tiful country, indeed. Santa Rosa,
situated about 100 miles north of
San Francisco, is a city of 10000
people, has wide paved streets, fine
municipal buildings, parks, street car
system, an attractive business dis
trict and beautiful homes. The di-
verging thoroughfares which serve
the city and the urban districts are
in most part paved, and one may
speed along these concrete ribbons
for miles and miles through s or
chards, vineyards, fields and gardens,
with frequent variations of native
woods. Country homes in this re-
gion loom as palaces of the rich who
come from every quarter of the
earth to cast their lines in pleasant
places. The home of the famed Jack
London, where he spent his last days
in the Valley of the Moon, is not far
south from Santa Rosa. Numerous
hot springs afford the native help for
we'll established year round resorts
which are well patronized. Some Of
the eleemosnyary institutions of the
state are located in the foot hills,
and factories and mills devoted to
making of by-products from the
fruitage of horticulture are well
distributed here. All in all, Santa
Rosa is one of the most beautiful
cities in California; and, it is one of
the richest.
In the valley south of Santa Rosa
we pass through Petaluma, which is
known as the "egg basket of the
world" The large area is stretch
of rolling hills in large part devoid
of verdure, but fecked with White
Leghorn poultry farms from which,
it is claimed, more than billica
eggs are produced for the market
each year. Of no especial value for
other purposes these lands in the
hands of the poulterer are priced at
more than $1,000 an acre. From
small beginning we find men here
who have grown wealthy in a few
less than a dozen-years by stu
deous attention to poultry raising.
What is true of Peteluma could be
duplicated anywhere in the state
where market conditions are as sat
isfactory as they are around the bay.
Strange as it may seem the chicken
industry was, in the beginning, pro-
NOTED by sea faring men who had
grown old in the service on the ocean
trails, and in their dreams of a tran
quill peace in the extremity of their
lives, saw their ideal in the brown
slopes and wooded canyons of the
Petaluma hills. These old "salts,"
who ruled their ships crews with
loaded pistol and "cat-'o-nine-tails"
through life of terror on the high
seas, here disport themselves as the
most generous of hosts. Stern and
rugged in their personal appearance,
they are grandly generous enter
tainers and while they are not quick
to respond to Establishments of
fattery, they are fond of good COM
pany, and the stranger is very well
come if his passport is vised with
good report. Once established on a
chicken ranch he seldom leaves home
content having claimed him from
the narrow decks of the vessels
which tossed him over and upon the
tides of the seven seas.
In wide contrast to Santa Rosa is
the Santa Clara valley in the center
of which we find San Jose city with
its forty or fifty thousand people.
This does not mean that San Jose is
not a beautiful place, for it is, but
it is different. Surrounding San
Jose is a wide fiat country with
sufficient undulation of surface and
convenient elevations to save it from
flood waters of the small river that
discharges its flow into San Fran
cisco bay some so miles to the north
west. San Jose is the center of a
large orchard area, the prune and
orchard predominating. For many
miles in every direction one passes
through one solid formation of or
chard growth with no distinct mark
ings of tract ownership. Mount
Hamilton, where the Lick observa-
tory is located, stands in the hills
near Los Gatos, some 80 miles south
from San Jose, and the Leland Stan
ford Jr. university is almost a su-
burb.
The third city, but not less in inn
portance than those already men
toned in the interior of the bay
nn,,rt,,, 70 CfaoLfnv oifuatad TX miles