56 8 y 1 CALIFORNIA WHERE LIFE IS BETTER CALIFORNIANS INC. HEADQUARTERS: SAN FRANCISCO CALIFORNIA WHERE LIFE IS BETTER THE INCOMPARABLE YOSEMITE "Snowy mountains soaring into the sky twelve and thirteen thousand feet * * * gardens on their sunny brows, avalanches thundering down their long white slopes, cataracts roaring gray and foaming in the crooked, rugged gorges, and glaciers in their shadowy recesses working in silence, slowly completing their sculpture." — John Muir. ■ CALIFORNIA WHERE LIFE IS BETTER California is more than a state — // is a country CALIFORNIANS INC. n headquarters: san francisco 1922 .0 2,8 The Great Central Valley lies glowing golden in the sunshine, extending north and south farther than the eye can reach, one smooth, flowery, lake-like bed of fertile soil. . . . All the seasons of the great plain are warm or temperate, and bee flowers are never wholly wanting. . . . The time will undoubtedly come when the entire area of this noble valley will be tilled like a garden, when the fertilizing waters of the mountains, now flowing to the sea, will be distributed to every acre, giving rise to prosperous towns, wealth, and the arts. john muir. Driving along through these enchanting scenes I had a grander dream. I saw a more beautiful race in possession of this Paradise — a race in which the best sym- metry and grace of the Greek was partially restored; milder manners, better reg- ulated impulses, and a keen appreciation of the arts which enrich and embellish life. BAYARD TAYLOR. Copyright, 1922, by Calijornians Inc. First printing November, 192 Printed by Taylor & Taylor, San Francisco ©CUG93605 4 ^ FOREWORD ■^ /f" California is a constant challenge to the imagination and to the - (I creative impulse of man. A country of countless scenic marvels, one 3 ^4_^thinks of it with a kind of awe, as of a thing seen yet too extraordinary lo to be wholly believed in. Hence the difficulty of conveying by means of the (^ written word any sense of these wonders. If California seems legendary to her v own sons, what must she seem to the distant stranger.^ From the standpoint of material productivity, California is equally amazing. The country is teeming with life. Sun and soil cry a perpetual invitation to man to join with them in creative partnership. And as yet this invitation has been very inadequately responded to. In spite of the half-billion dollars' worth of fruit and grain and vegetables that California produced in 1921, the poten- tiality of luxuriant nature still dwarfs the puny enterprise of man. The census of 1920 lists California's population as approximately three and a half millions. There is room, ample room in California for thirty millions. Not only room, but need. California cannot fulfill her manifest potentialities until many new millions have been added to her present population. The hard- sledding pioneer phase is past. There remains the task of building, in this garden of the West, a proud and rich civilization which will be in some measure an answer to the opulent challenge of nature. Life today in California is on the whole freer, richer, happier in all probability than it is anywhere else in the world. What life can be tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow, if man does well his part where nature has been infinitely prodigal, is something that can scarcely be contemplated without a catch of the breath. Californians Inc. invites you to come and enjoy this free and vivid life of the present, and to join in building the greater California of the future. This booklet, like the map on the following page, is only a general outline of California and what it offers you. It is impossible, briefly, to tell you of all the resources and advantages of the many beautiful, progressive, and prosperous cities and towns and counties which make California what it is. But we have detailed information concerning all of them. We suggest that you write us for the specific information of which you, as a tourist, a business or professional man, a home-seeker, a prospective farm-settler, stand in immediate need. You may write to Californians Inc. with confidence. The organization is the outcome of the desire of hundreds of business firms, associations, and individuals to establish for the state an impartial, non-profit- making body for the dissemination of exact, unprejudiced, authoritative facts. Whatever your problem or desire in regard to California, Californians Inc. will endeavor to answer it intelligently and sympathetically. :'-^^^M^/ V-f DIABIO SAN FRANCISCO AND BAY CITICS ^ NSTLCARK tjly SAN Dieco NAVAL BASE SCENIC MAP O The magnitude and complexity of California are best under- Stood by a visualization of the major topographical elements. The Great Valley of California comprises an area of over twelve million acres, sheltered from the sea-winds by the Coast Range with its numerous fertile valleys, and watered by the melting snows of the Sierra Nevada mountains — a vast agri- cultural bowl in which grow every plant and tree native to the temperate and semi-tropical zones. The Great Valley is F CALIFORNIA drained by the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers, which meet and flow together into San Francisco Bay, the natural port of all this marvelously rich region. North of the great central basin is northern California, with dense forests, rugged valleys, and the Siskiyou mountains at the Oregon line. South of the Great Valley is southern California, the Sierra Madre mountains separating the great Mojave Desert from the Im- perial Valley and the beautiful region along the coast. CALIFORNIA WHERE LIFE IS BETTER WHY IS A CALIFORNIAN? Why is a Calijornian such an astonishing phenomenon to the uninitiated and uncomprehending outlander? What visiofi have they seen that makes these Calijorniayis not merel\ contoited citizens of a prosperous commonwealth, but missionaries, crusaders, impassioned bearers of glad tidings to the dwellers in less favored portions of America and of the world? ^FTEN Eastern triends, irked by the I monotonous paeans of praise sung by the residents of the land of sunshine and flowers, are moved to ask such questions as these. But they are never completely an- swered until the questioners themselves come to Calitornia. Then the mystery at once be- comes plain. For example, suppose that, having entered California by one of the passes across the Sierra through which the caravans of the pioneers once hewed their way, you are trav- eling by automobile from Sacramento, the state capital, to San Francisco. It is the end ot the summer, and the smooth contours of the bare brown hills that slope and swell about the base ot Mt. Diablo are like waves of the sea rolling endlessly into the distance. You stop to examine an ancient weathered road-sign pointing north. It says, simply, "To Seattle." Suppose that next day you are climbing the Sausalito hills that overlook the Golden Gate, with the splendid amphitheater of the bay on one side opening out upon the blue expanse of the Pacific on the other. Carved on the rock you may see a hand pointing west, and be- neath it the words, inscribed by some whimsi- cal hiker, "To China." As Californians, we submit that these things not only indicate a unique attitude toward matters of geography, but that they symbolize fairly and truly a certain freedom, a certain Homeric sweep and simplicity, which Californians, responding inevitably to the stimulus of their magnificent landscapes, come to share in common. A Calitornian is a person who has acquired a new scale of values, a new sense ot lite. Note that the most rhapsodic Californians are not necessarily Native Sons, but newcomers of one, two, or three years' residence. A Cali- fornian is a human being who, after years of struggle with a less bountiful Mother Nature, suddenly finds his fundamental adjustments to lite eased, relaxed, rendered incomparably more pleasant and advantageous. If he is a particularly hard-bitten individual, if life elsewhere has treated him harshly, it may take as long as half a dozen years before he tuUy appreciates his improved estate. Then he begins to unbend. He is kinder, both to himself and to his neighbors. He discovers, often with a kind ot na'ive bewilderment, what a fine and gracious thing lite can be. Seeing California's fertile valleys pour forth their almost incredible abundance, he loses his distrust ot life, and taps resources of confi- dence and enterprise that he scarcely knew he possessed. He dreams large romantic dreams, and then sets to gaily and makes them come true before the eyes of an astonished world. The Californian inherits a natural domain unparalleled in wealth and beauty. He is rich in all the essentials ot life, and rapidly grow- ing richer. He is happy. He wants everybody to know about it. There is nothing very com- plicated about the Calitornian's psychology. He is merely showing the effects of an unac- customed fulness of heart. And the strangest part about the gorgeous tales he tells, is that almost all of them are true. CONCERNING CLIMATE This includes the tales about the climate. The average Californian's attitude on this point is WHY IS A CALIFORNIAN? Climate is important in its ejfect on human happiness, as well as on agricultural and industrial productivity. The metropolitan cities of California enjoy a larger number of clear, sunshiny days during the year as well as a lower range in changes of temperature than any other of the metropolitan cities of America. The graph shown above pictures the days of sunshine during the year in representa- tive cities of the United States. likely to be brutally frank. He will tell you that he cannot understand why anybody should live in a country where it is always either too hot or too cold, where one never knows when it is going to rain, snow, or hail, where one is forever subject to such sordid vicissitudes of climate as having one's feet wet, one's ears frozen, or one's collar wilted. If you reply that this, after all, is life, he will answer crudely enough that it isn't T'he Life; furthermore, that he sees no virtue whatever in being alternately baked and frozen, rained on and snowed under, no matter how stoically these miseries are endured. The detailed statistics of climate give only a faint idea of what it means in comfort and happiness. Picture to yourself what a differ- ence is made in your habits, your moods, your whole adjustment to life, when you know that for at least four months of the year — from June I St to October i st — no rain will fall. You are emancipated from the tyranny of the gum- sljoe and umbrella. You can drive your car into the country without the thought of top or side curtains. You can camp for the night and sleep on the ground, with no other pro- tection against the dew than the overhanging branches of a redwood tree. Very kind, very indulgent is our gentle Mother Nature in «!2=5 California. Her joyous lyric moods predomi- nate, even during what we call our winter. During these months, while the rain is paint- ing those long brown hill-slopes a delicate green, varied by the blue larkspur and the gold of the poppy, three out of five mornings are jubilant with warm sunshine; three out of five nights are starry and clear. It is only dur- ing the months of January, February, and March that rainy days are frequent. There is no winter at all in the eastern sense. Nature sets the key in which we play life's music. And here the key is a vigorous major. You can scarcely h^blasexn California. Sooner or later the rhythm of the warm earth and the blue sky will possess you; you will become simple again, and you will love the taste of life in spite of yourself. A SAN FRANCISCO HILL-DWELLER If the love of cities is embedded in your na- ture, you will find San Francisco (taking this city for an example ot California life) endless- ly fascinating, both in the picturesqueness of its scenery and in the gay and colorful life of its cosmopolitan population. In San Francisco we live on the tops and on the slopes of seven — or is it eleven.'' — hills, as we call them in California. Elsewhere they might be called mountains. Our living-room windows, our sun-rooms and sleeping-porches look out upon the southern peaks, or upon the western ocean, or north and east across the bay to the peak ot Mt. Tamalpais and the blue wall of the Berkeley hills rising up toward Mt. Diablo in the distance. Probably more of us live on intimate terms with ocean and bay and mountain than any other urban population in the world. You will find very few slum-dwellers in San Francisco, or, for that matter, in any other California city. You will even have difficulty in finding the spectacled Mr. Common Peo- ple, or the Tired Commuter, or any of the other down-trodden twentieth-century types for whose woes the caricaturists have caused our hearts to bleed. Consider the average San Franciscan re- =?J* SAN FRANCISCO AND THE BAY CITIES W-^ California Street, where much of CaUfornia's financial and business life centers, is the Wall Street of San Fran- cisco. It is estimated that fifty million people annually pass through the Ferry Building, whose tower is shown rising above the water-front at the center of the picture. At the left is Goat Island, on which the Naval Station is located, while on the farther shore are the communities of Berkeley, Oakland, and Alameda, all of which con- tribute largely to the commuting population of San Francisco. The peak in the distance is Mt. Diablo. it' .-"s^ !...„, J[ J J i m m 1 . an. ' i> < » : Li • bni WHY IS A CALIFORNIAN? turning to his home at five o'clock on a week- day- It the street car is crowded, he waits for the next one. He is neither particularly tired nor particularly hurried. Perhaps he stops to make a purchase at the corner flower-stand. (San Francisco buys more flowers per capita than any other city in the world. The down- town streets are gay with flower-stands every month in the year.) Twenty-five cents — or "two bits," as we say in California — buys an armful of flaming marigolds. Tucking them under his arm, our San Franciscan secures an outside seat, the better to see the view (it is never too cold to sit outside), and the car clangs with him up and down the steep hills to his home. The trip is as jolly as a ride on the roller-coaster, and as much unlike the ordeal of the subway or elevated journey as one can imagine. Another way of going home is by automo- bile, and there are many thousands of San Franciscans who elect this mode of trans- portation between home and office. Ride with one of these automobile commuters up the boulevard that circles Twin Peaks, and you will see San Francisco spread like a gaily patterned robe over the hills and valleys on which the city is built. Market Street, a wide white line drawn due east from Twin Peaks into the bay, divides this robe into two parts. To the right is "the Mission," a sheltered and sunny dis- trict centering around the ancient Mission Dolores, and extending down to the bay, where half a dozen great warships ride at anchor in Man-o'-War Row. To the left is Telegraph Hill, from whose top the forty-niners once signaled the arrival ot the ships coming in from around the Horn. Today a radio broadcasting station records the daily comings and goings of a vastly richer and more intricate life of the sea: the deep-lunged liners steaming slowly in through the Gate and warping up beside the great pier-warehouses at the Embarcadero; the storm-beaten Alaska fishing fleet anchored in China Basin; the little blue-and-white power boats of the Italian fishermen at Fishermen's Wharf; the square-rigged lumber vessels SAN LOS TKAN CISCO ANOELES BOSTON NEWVOBK PHILADELPHl* SI LOUIS ClIICACO ?3.371 J 2.974 H,U~ ^1.775 H,bbO S 1.330 Sl,'i(M• S^- San Francisco ranks high in per-capita wealth {see graph above), in per-capita savings {68% greater than the average for the United States), and in per-capita bank deposits {78% greater than the United States average). San Fran- Cisco's monthly spending capacity is $J5J,o§o,ooo — the highest among America's leading cities. lifting their tall spars in the cove between Sausalito and Belvedere. On the southern slope of Russian Hill, Chinatown may be distinguished as a long line of flaring gilded roofs and ornamented balconies extending from the Latin Quarter half-way to Market Street. Farther along the bay shore the cliffs rise steeply, and a huge ridge, castellated for miles with villas built into its sides and along its crest, stretches clear to the ocean. On the rich green that carpets the crest of this ridge, with fresh breezes always blowing, and with bay and ocean and mountains all about them, the golfers of the Municipal Golf Links may be seen playing through a season that lasts 365 days of the year. Inland are the pleasant residential districts of Sunset and Richmond, bordering a four- mile wood which is Golden Gate Park. On the other side of Twin Peaks are other resi- dential parks with curving streets and foun- tains among the eucalyptus groves that clothe the smooth, sunny hill -slopes stretch- ing down to the sea. COMMUTING DE LUXE Consider the commuter crosssing the bay to one of the suburban communities in Contra Costa, Alameda, or Marin counties. Again you look in vain for the harassed brow and the bent shoulders of the comic-supplement 03» -<-^ THE PORT OF SAN FRANCISCO It is probable that San Franciscans live on more intimate terms with ocean and bay and mountain than any other urban population in the world. (V) Shows the middle section of the city as it appears looking north across the great Presidio Reservation to Mt. Tamalpais beyond the Golden Gate. (2) Shows some of the modern piers along the Embarcadero, with part of the Pacific fleet at anchor in the bay. 12 WHY IS A CALIFORNIAN? p^^m^ ^ NEW NEW SAN YORK BOSTON ORIEANS CHICAGO FRANCISCO 11.7% 18.5% 13J% 27% 17.4% In home ownership, perhaps the best itjdex of stable pros' perity, San Francisco stands high among American cities, as indicated by the graph above. In addition San Fran- cisco shows the smallest proportion oj mortgaged real estate (only i8%) and a low average of persons per dwelling (California, 4.4'7o; United States average, 5./%). commuter. Instead, you are likely to see a brown and healthy-looking individual pacing the rear deck of the ferry-boat and treating himself liberally to the delights of contem- plating San Francisco Bay. The air is brisk but not too cold. The sun is setting in the Golden Gate with its usual lavish splendor. The evening shadows are creeping up the slopes of Mt. Tamalpais. The contours of the brown hills are ample and flowing. The chances are that our commuter friend is on his way to a bungalow tucked in a cleft of one of those hills. It is scarcely fifty minutes' journey by ferry and train from his office, yet it is deep in the peace of the country. Slim young redwoods stretch cool shadows along the walk, and the red berries of the ma- drona make a splash of autumn flame above the door. Back of the house there is a flourish- ing orchard of prune and apricot and peach trees, and perhaps a vegetable garden. And there are flowers everywhere — a tangle of roses over the sleeping-porch, a cool drift of Shasta daisies under the windows, and a bril- liant tapestry of marigolds, zinnias, and a score of other flowers spread across the yard. (In California you will find almost all the flowers you know in the East, transformed in size and beauty by the more favorable con- ditions of soil and climate.) When the deer season comes around it is «e=5 — quite conceivable that he may hike a few miles into the hills back of his house and bring back a sizeable buck. If you get on terms of intimacy with this typical suburban householder, he will tell you that his house and lot cost him under six thou- sand dollars, that the produce of his orchard and garden goes a considerable way toward feeding his family, that business is good in the city, and that he is saving enough every month so that in a few more years he will be inde- pendent. He says this in a tone of quiet self- satisfaction. Yet he is not precisely smug. He is merely on top and sure of himself, materi- ally and psychically. And there are thousands like him everywhere in California. You will find them in the cities and on the ranches, in the north, in the south, in the interior valleys — in every corner of this huge state. You will find them in every oc- cupation and in every class of society — it is a state of being we are describing, not a state of finance. You will find them, tor example, assem- bled in convention at one of the hundreds of such gatherings held annually in all the agricultural counties of the state, and you will be impressed at the energy and dispatch with which these farmers and orchardists attack their common problems. You will find them gathered in town halls discussing questions of town-planning, recre- ation centers, schools and public health, and displaying a degree of imagination and en- terprise scarcely to be found in older com- munities where the lines of life have set and hardened. You will find them in their playtime mo- toring in the mountains or camping in the more remote stretches of wilderness with which the state still abounds, and you will note the intelligence with which they employ their leisure. A common quality unites these Califor- nians — a disposition to ask more of life than the average run of mankind, and, moreover, a cheerful determination to achieve what these new standards demand. «?!* FROM THE MOUNTAIN TO THE BAY m-^ This picture, taken from the top of Mt. Tamalpais, shows the "double bow-knot" of the Mt. Tamalpais and Muir Woods Railway, the suburban communities of Marin County scattered among the foothills, and in the distance glimpses of the cities of San Francisco Bay. Muir Woods, a magnificent grove of redwood trees, named for the great naturalist, is located in a canyon at the base of the mountain, less than two hours' journey by ferry and rail from San Francisco. ^.illlBgy^. "% #**>: ^4g#-* J p L^mn ^^S^i^ ^^^^HIWW^B^^^P^ ■ ^B3M- 'ri'-r'i ^BSSKSESti^'- '' '"^ m ¥1 * ■ .■' % -i : '-/J -V. WgF^'' f^ - '^^^S^BB^^flf/^ ^Awf, ^■^^^ ^,'^ ^'•*';'' 'f"-*^ '". ■^^^■^K^wrT^KwMRm,_«lE&A^B ;^. ->.^: mmK^Km ..ki^.. g^i^^-^'-^r^ Mf *'^'^. ■M^..^.:.^'" '^^^ ■, ar-!t;R,«-J-.55SMi ^^. i^ iSU^^Hf^l '""■>'^ '■ , ■ . :, - " '■ --:^ '■■'Cr'l^, ':■■: ' 1 ;^^.:sgE^9 - * ' ' '■ •■w"'*^^^'^'^'*' ^^ ":* >^-J: •"'"-IMT "^^ •■ ;U-5v&:t/'* ^Kg'^ ^li^ ^ »y^ ^'tH "^■^^^^'. '^ans ^yljj wiSkiLj^n^K^iS*., « -^ ^HP^^^^ r^sa^l^F •«*" - w^ _,^^BII^^^^^M ^^^^^BIII^E*^- ■*!& ' ^ ^--2^".^^ ->*- CALIFORNIA: WHERE LIFE IS BETTER 15 FROM THE AIR California has fifty-eight counties, each one of which esteems itself for one reason or another the most desirable county in California. And each one has little difficulty in compiling a considerable body of evidence to prove its case. Eventually you may want to examine this evidence in detail. MEANWHILE, however, we propose a simple and efficacious means by which you may escape this Babel of sincere but confusing local prides, and for the moment gain a somewhat more detached view of the whole. We propose that you board an aeroplane at Crissey Field, the government aviation grounds in the Presidio ot San Fran- cisco, and let us take you on an aerial sight- seeing trip. You will sometimes descend low, and sometimes mount above the clouds. And you will see and hear much or little, at the impartial caprice of the aviator. . . . The aeroplane soars into the air above the Golden Gate, and the seals on the rocks be- side the Cliff House lift their heads to bark through the foam. The machine swerves and sails southward down the peninsula, between bay and ocean. On the right are the cliffs and sands of a rugged and broken ocean front. Near Half Moon Bay begin the artichoke fields. Practically the entire supply of this vegetable comes from a restricted area along the coast. Inland is a chain of small lakes lying like a string of sapphires set in the mat- rices of the golden hills. Still farther inland are the red tile roofs, the eucalyptus-lined avenues, and the green lawns of one of the most beautiful residential districts of Am- erica — the strip of sunny rolling country which includes San Mateo, Burlingame, Hillsborough, Redwood City — fashionable suburban towns. At Burlingame a polo-game is in progress, and in the hills above the town a group of sportsmen is riding to the hounds. Farther south one sees the spacious wooded grounds and the mission architecture of Stanford University at Palo Alto. Here begins the Valley of Heart's Delight. If it is spring, you will look down upon a billowing sea of blossoms covering a valley-floor twenty miles wide and forty miles long, and foaming up into the clefts of the blue hills on either side. This is the Santa Clara Valley, whence comes nearly half of the nation's supply of prunes. Four months later, when the harvest is being gathered, you would look down upon acres of blue, where the prunes are drying, and other acres of golden apricots. And if you should walk through the orchards at this time, you would be intoxicated by a fragrance that quite passes description — the rich smell of the sun-ripened fruit. The ribbon of the State Highway cuts this valley from end to end, following the route of the ancient El Camino Real (The King's Highway), running from San Diego to San Francisco, along which Junipero Serra over a century ago established his chain of mis- sions. Santa Clara University, near San Jose and opposite the white dome of the Lick Observatory on Mt. Hamilton, includes in its grounds the site of one of those early missions. Continuing south, we pass over the beach at Santa Cruz and out across the Bay of Monterey to the town of that name, the capital of California during the Spanish oc- cupation, near which are located the Hotel Del Monte and other popular tourist resorts. It was at Carmel, near a clean white-sanded river a few miles from Monterey, that Father Serra rang little silver bells among the trees and called the Indians to witness the conse- cration of one of the earliest of the California missions. Carmel is now an art colony, whence issues the work of some of our best- known American painters and writers. Bearing south and east, our aeroplane crosses the Salinas River Valley. A cloud of dust is seen rising from a field near Salinas. A rodeo is in progress, in which cowboys and cowgirls from all over the West compete an- nually in roping and bull-riding. The wide green spot just outside the town is a straw- berry patch of a hundred acres. Strawberries -2?!« -<-m DOWN THE PENINSULA Many of the most beautiful country estates in California are located in the vicinity of Hillsborough, Burlingame, and San Mateo — delightful suburban towns built among the eucalyptus and oak groves of the sunny rolling country between the ocean and the bay. (T) Typical peninsula residence. (2) Polo game. (3)Golf^365 days in the year in California. (T)The central quadrangle of Stanford University at Palo Alto. i6 FROM THE AIR California, with a population of less than three and a halj millions, occupies an area equivalent to the territory occu- pied by the states on the Atlantic seaboard extending from Maine to South Carolina, and inhabited by 2g,662,o^ji people. bear from April to December in California. Following the line of the Salinas River, we sight the almond groves of San Luis Obispo County, historically one of the oldest coun- ties of the state, known as "the bishop's gar- den." The missions at San Luis Obispo and at San Miguel, close to the curative springs of Paso Robles, are among the most inter- esting relics of the Spanish occupation. Port San Luis, to which run the pipe-lines from the Santa Maria and San Joaquin oil-fields, is one of the largest oil-shipping ports in the world. A few miles south Pismo Beach stretches its twenty-two-mile crescent of white sand — said to be the second largest beach in the world. THE EMPIRE OF THE SOUTH At the southern corner of San Luis Obispo County the Coast Range joins the Sierra, which at this point swings a granite barrier straight across the interior basin. Joining the squadron of the eagles that soar in the blue air above the Tehachapi Pass, we look south upon a country larger than the State of Ohio, richer than the Indies, and magnificent in its stupendous contrasts of mountain, desert, and fertile valley. To the east the snow-capped summit of Mt. Whitney — the highest mountain in the United States — rises 14,522 feet above sea- level. At its base the flowing sands of the desert are darkened by a strip of rich ver- «fe SPRING IN THE "VALLEY OF HEART'S DELIGHT" m->- A billowing sea of blossoms covering a valley-floor twenty miles wide and forty miles long, and foaming up into the clefts of the blue hills on either side. The famous blossom festival at Saratoga is usually held toward the end of March, when less fortunate regions of the United States are still held in the grip of winter. Nearly half the nation's supply of prunes comes from the Santa Clara Valley. dure, which the farmers of the fertile Owens River Valley, by means ot irrigation, are steadily widening. Two ranges beyond, the land drops down into the burning sink of Death Valley, 422 feet below sea-level, where a temperature of 134 degrees Fahrenheit has been recorded. To the west are the oil-derricks of Ventura County, and, beyond, the blue Pacific and the islands opposite the beautiful playground city of Santa Barbara. To the south lies the rapidly developing region of orange and lemon groves, vineyards, and oil-fields tributary to Los Angeles. If you look closely, you may even be able to see a papier-mache village being destroyed or a mimic battle being fought on the mo- tion-picture "lots" at Hollywood. It is hard to realize that it was scarcely forty years ago that a Calitornia inventor by the name of Muybridge is said to have per- fected the first successful motion picture, thereby satisfying the whim of Senator Leland Stanford, who wanted to prove to his friends that when his favorite trotting- horse was in action all four legs left the ground at once. At the extreme southern edge of the state, in the interior, stock-raisers, orchardists, and melon-growers of the Imperial Valley, where the soil is fifty feet deep, have drawn enough water from the Colorado River to nourish a garden forty miles long and constantly wid- ening, with abundant crops ripening every month in the year on land that was formerly only cactus-tufted sand. And on the seaside, forty miles north of the Mexican border, is the sunny paradise which is San Diego, with its excellent harbor and beautiful curving beaches, and its oldest of the missions — "the place where California began." THE GREAT VALLEY We can afford but a glance at this vast do- main, however, for we must turn north again to see the greatest wonder of all — the Great Central Valley of California, including the combined valleys of the Sacramento and the San Joaquin, which stretches from the Te- a^ FROM THE AIR 19 hachapi north to the foothills of Mt. Shasta, a distance of over four hundred miles, and which includes over i2,ooo,ck)0 acres of the most productive land in the world. Let John Muir, who knew and loved the mountains and plains of California better than any other man, describe this, "the grandest and most telling of California landscapes": "The Great Central Valley lies glowing golden in the sunshine, extending north and south farther than the eye can reach, one smooth, flowery, lake-like bed of fertile soil. Along its eastern margin rises the mighty Sierra, miles in height, reposing like a smooth, cumulus cloud in the sky, and so gloriously colored and so luminous, it seems to be not clothed with light, but wholly com- posed of it, like the wall of some celestial city. Along the top, and extending a good way down, you see a pale, pearl-gray belt of snow; and below it a belt of blue and dark purple marking the extension of the forests; and along the base of the range a broad belt of rose-purple and yellow, where lie the miners' goldfields and the foothill gardens. All these colored belts blending smoothly, make a wall of light ineffably fine, and as beautiful as a rainbow yet firm as adamant. "All the seasons of the great plain are warm or temperate, and bee-flowers are never wholly wanting; but the grand spring- time — the annual resurrection — is governed by the rains, which usually set in about the middle of November or the beginning of December. "The rainy season is by no means a gloomy, soggy period of constant cloudiness and rain. Perhaps nowhere else in North America, perhaps in the world, are the months of December, January, February, and March so full of bland, plant-building sunshine. The winds, which in settled wea- ther come from the northwest, veer around into the opposite direction, the sky fills gradually and evenly with general cloud, from which the rain falls steadily, often for days in succession, at a temperature of torty- five or fifty degrees. «2b The Jour and a quarter million acres of irrigated lands in California in igig represents an increase of ioj6 per cent over the irrigated areas of iSSo, and is only one third of the twelve millions of acres capable of irrigation. "The time will undoubtedly come when the entire area of this noble valley will be tilled like a garden, when the fertilizing waters of the mountains, now flowing to the sea, will be distributed to every acre, giving rise to prosperous towns, wealth, and the arts." WEALTH FROM SNOW-WATER If the great naturalist were still walking the trails of his beloved Sierra and looking down upon the plains, he would see his dream pro- gressively coming true. All up and down the valley the green strip is widening, as the rapid development of irrigation projects brings the life-giving water into the fields. In 1921 California had 67,391 farms under irrigation — an increase of 71.3 per cent over 19 10. Nearly 8,000,000 acres are included in irrigation enterprises, and over 4,200,000 acres are being served. Yet California has barely begun to tap her immense resources of water, both for irriga- tion and for power. Sixteen important rivers have their sources in the clefts of the Sierra, and drop, many of them a distance of over a mile, before they pour their waters into the Great Valley. Each of these rivers is a potential source of water for irrigation and power. In winter, standing before the door of his house in his shirt- sleeves, the farmer of the Great Valley watch- es the snow swirling about the far peaks of the mountains. Those unfailing blizzards 03* -<-^ MEMORIES OF MISSION DAYS Monterey, capital of California during the Spanish occupation, and the country round about it are still largely Spanish in architecture and in atmosphere. (V) Pinnacles National Monument. (2) Old Customs House, Mon- terey. (3) Mission at San Juan Bautista. (J) On the road to the Santa Cruz big trees, (o) Bull-riding, a feature, of the annua] rodeo at Salinas. 20 FROM THE AIR W00-1910 1910-1910 CALIFORNIA 11.6 U.S.A. 10.9 CALIFORNIA USA 1.4 In the decade preceding i()iO, California s farms increased in number twice as fast as the United States average. Be- tween i<)io and ig20 they increased twenty-four times as fast as the United States average. {Percentages of increase pictured above ^ are his bank account. The snow-capped peaks of the Sierra are not only the glory of Cali- fornia's scenery. They are the guarantee of her agricultural prosperity and of her future industrial greatness. THE PATTERN CHANGES From year to year the gold-and-green pat- tern of the Great Valley changes. For man is at work here on a tremendous scale, and the very landscape itself is transformed at his will. Thirty years ago the valley was one gigantic grain-field flowing molten at the harvest season with the gold of waving wheat. Henry Miller, the picturesque mon- arch of this vast domain, came to California from his native duchy of Wurtemburg, and worked first as a butcher-boy trudging up the San Francisco hills with a quarter ol beef on his back. Before he died, it is said that he could ride his horse from the Oregon line to the Mexican border and sleep every night on his own property. All that is changed today. The great es- tates are being split up. The units become smaller every year. The pattern of the land- scape, as well as the pattern ot lite itself, grows more intricate in the Great Valley. At the southern end of the San Joaquin Val- ley, the area marked "Tulare Lake" on the map shows as a wide patch of green, out of which rise the cone-topped cylinders of great t-Cs silos. These are the fields of alfalfa growing deep^and lush on the fertile soil where the lake once was. Seven crops of alfalfa a year is not an unusual phenomenon in California. There are over five hundred thousand acres of alfalfa in that portion of the Great Valley tributary to the San Joaquin River. This area, where alfalfa is now being produced at the rate of seven to ten (sometimes twelve) tons of cured hay to the acre, without the use of fertilizers, had been producing grain (also without the use of fertilizers) for thirty or forty years, and is now in better condition than ever. THE GRAPE TRIUMPHANT A hundred-odd miles along the Great Valley, northward from Bakersfield, we sight the flourishing city of Fresno — the home of the raisin and thegrape. The value of California's grape crop in 1921 was approximately seventy million dollars. In the Fresno district alone, which includes Fresno County and small portions of Madera, Kings, and Tulare counties, you see the rich green of the vines spreading out over an area of two hundred thousand acres — approximately three hun- dred square miles. When the grapes, peaches, figs, pears, melons, and other fruits of the soil are being gathered, mile-long trains of refrigerator cars wait on the sidings, and the little stern-wheel steamers make an almost continuous proces- sion up and down the river from Stockton to the bay. Let us examine into the quality of the life that is lived among these vineyards and orchards. A CALIFORNIA ORCHARDIST In a wide field, shielded from the highway by a glowing hedge of yellow acacias and scarlet oleanders, a California orchardist is walking between the rows of a year-old peach or- chard. Each tree bears a numbered card which corresponds to another card filed in the ranch office. A complete history of the tree, beginning with the day it was planted, c^ SOME PRE-GLACIAL SURVIVORS ^->- When the sabre-toothed tiger fought with the mammoth in the swamps and jungles of the pre-glacial epoch, the big trees of the Mariposa and Calaveras groves, and in Sequoia and General Grant national parks were growing very much as we see them today. Some of the largest of these trees, twenty-five feet in diameter and over four hundred feet high, are said to be over three thousand years old. The Coast redwoods, many of them nearly as Jiuge as those in the high mountains, are accessible at all seasons «->;-. «■: , m- 1^- i ■ FROM THE AIR 23 is kept on this card as carefully as if it were a patient in a hospital. Make the acquaintance of this typical California farmer, and you will quickly find that you are talking to an exceedingly alert and well-informed horticulturist. He can talk soil analysis, irrigation, cultivating, pruning, spraying, and marketing with almost equal acumen. Last year he cleared five thousand dollars on twenty acres of six-year-old peaches and apricots. Many of his neighbors did as well or better. But it must be clearly understood that such success is by no means the sheer gift of fertile soil and favorable climate. These farmers were successful be- cause they came to California equipped with the training and the capital without which no agricultural enterprise should be at- tempted in California any more than in any other state. THE rancher's PLAYTIME Today, however, is Saturday. The children are home from school, and, as the hard work of the picking and drying season is over, the rancher and his family can afford to treat themselves to an outing. Our typical rancher and his family pile into their car (in 1921 there were ninety-nine motor-cars to every hundred farms in Cali- fornia) and a few hours' ride on paved high- ways takes them into the cool quiet ol the mountain canyons. They can go, if they like, to Yosemite National Park and see with their own eyes what John Muir has described so well: "Snowy mountains soaring into the sky twelve and thirteen thousand feet, . . . gardens on their snowy brows, avalanches thundering down their long white slopes, cataracts roaring gray and foaming in the crooked, rugged gorges, and glaciers in their shadowy recesses working in silence, slowly completing their sculpture; newborn lakes at their feet, blue and green, free or encum- bered with drifting icebergs, like miniature Arctic Oceans, shining, sparkling, calm as stars." Or they can go to Sequoia National Park, with its matchless stand of Big Trees, and California's paved highways are 62§g miles long. If placed across the continent they would extend from San Francisco to Boston, from San Francisco to New York, and again from San Francisco half-way across the continent. learn humility at the feet of these tour- thousand-year-old forest titans. All these wonders, and many others, we see as our aeroplane takes its flight north, following the Mother Lode from Mariposa to Colfax, with the valley on our left and the high Sierra on our right. THE TRAIL OF THE ARGONAUTS Near the crest of the Sierra, where the rail- road trains rumble beneath the snowsheds, is Lake Tahoe, a magnificent body of water 6225 feet above sea-level, twenty-three miles long by thirteen miles wide, and rimmed on every side by snow-capped granite peaks. It is the largest of the countless snow-fed lakes which gleam in the folds of the high Sierra, many of which are popular summer resorts for the populations of the cities. Tahoe may be reached in six hours by automobile from Sacramento. Its summer population numbers many thousands, from the wealthy owners of the estates which dot its seventy-two-mile circumference to the knapsack hiker who builds his solitary campfire in a cove where his only companions are the nighthawk flick- ering above the water, and perhaps a coyote crying in the canyon. From Truckee the railroad follows the old pioneer trail down the American River Can- yon, along which only seventy years ago the Argonauts were hewing their way with super- human courage and endurance, and where even today bronzed prospectors may be seen — - (1) Typical foothill orchards. (2) Auto camp near Sacramento; the automobile makes good hunting and fishing country easily accessible, and practically every city and town maintains auto camps with every convenience for the motorist. (^ Trout are plentiful in the thousands of glacial lakes in the high Sierra. Q^Over a million ducks are shot annually, (o) Because of the large and numerous game refuges, deer are still plentiful. THIS, THEN, IS THE LAND 31 chroniclers of those colorful days, when the best and the worst of the human tribe stripped life to its final simplicities in the insane struggle for gold. We see the mushroom palaces of the suc- cessful miners sprouting along the crest of Nob Hill in San Francisco; we see the less successful ones drifting down from the Moth- er Lode country, and in the course of a few years filling the Great Valley almost from end to end with the gold of ripened wheat. We see the beginning of the fight for water — the troops of land-poor farmers in their work-clothes pouring into the capital at Sacramento and demanding (successfully in the end) that their irrigation bonds be made legal investments for savings-banks. We see the early days of horticulture in California,when thevision and energyof those pioneers and sons of pioneers laid the founda- tion of what is today without question the strongest and most complete body of agri- cultural and horticultural law in the world. We see these fruit-growers, largely by vir- tue of these laws, which standardized the California product on a hitherto unpre- cedented level of quality, rapidly conquering and holding a market three thousand miles away. We see a growing dissatisfaction with the usual channels of distribution, with here and there attempts at independent marketing. A Fresno County raisin-grower, the son of a pioneer, finds himself unable to get produc- tion cost for his crop — the shippers are clamoring "over-production." He packs his raisins into a box-car, in triumphant disre- gard of all the hoary traditions of trade, and with the aid of a brass band sells them him- self from the side of the car, at the rate of a ton a day, to middle-western communities which previously had never consumed more than one hundred and fifty pounds a year. We see, after a few such dramatic pre- ludes, the launching of the first successful co-operative marketing associations. It is not too much to say that America, and indeed the world, is learning the theory «Ct) CAUrORNIA 350.157,000 LEAPING NEW VORK a48,5W300 NEXT WASHINCTOK 102,004,000 (OIXOWTNO For the six months ending October, ig22, California's power companies produced a monthly average of JS'^,I57~ 000 K.W.H., as against 24S,sig,500 in New York and 102,004,000 in Washington, the next highest states. The installed capacity of power plants was over 1,200,000 h.p. in ig20 and will be increased to over j, 100, 000 in igjo. and practice of producers' co-operatives to a considerable extent from California. We see the Eldorado of the real estate speculator wax and then wane in California, as irrigation brings more and more new areas into competition, and social controls over the land are progressively strengthened. We see public and private agencies studying the problems of rural credit and land coloniza- tion, and achieving such notable successes at Durham and Delhi that they must inevita- bly be followed by other colonization projects on a greater scale. We see lonely engineers at work in the clefts of the high Sierra, cupping the snow- torrents behind great concrete dams, and sending the first units of California's four- million potential hydroelectric horsepower humming along the wires to cities hundreds of miles away. We see the ships sailing in and out of the Golden Gate — first the frigates of the early explorers, then the great square-riggers roar- ing in under full sail, then the liners, the tramps and tankers, in steadily increasing numbers as the developing trade of the Orient and South America and the world trade through the Panama Canal pours its cargoes into the port of San Francisco. We see an empire spring miraculously into being within the space of a single generation. c^ ■<~m LASSEN NATIONAL PARK The great volcanic area of which Lassen Peak was once a conspicuous center has been decadent and practically extinct for ages. The eruptions that have occurred since May 30, 1914, are local in character, and no material injury has resulted or should be apprehended. The volcanic craters, hot springs, ice caves, and cinder islands of this fascinating region are now included in Mt. Lassen National Park, and automobiles travel to within three miles of the new crater. 32 CALIFORNIA: WHERE LIFE IS BETTER THE MOST PROSPEROUS FARMERS IN AMERICA In the twelve years between igog and ig2i California progressed from the position of sixteenth to that of the second richest agricultural state in the Union, being surpassed only by Texas. California advanced to her present position during the very years when crop values were every- where falling. Between igig and ig2i a storm of decreasing values swept the country; but the California farmer, whose prosperity is solidly founded on diversified crops, irrigation, and co-operative marketing, suffered far less than the farmers of other regions. CROP values in California declined only 40.3 percent during this period, while in the ten leading agricultural states of the country the average decline was sixty-four per cent. According to the Four- teenth Census, the average farm in the United States produces $2,300 worth of crops every year. The average farm in California produces |'?,ooo worth — over twice as much. In 1921 California grew $309.46 worth of crops for every man, woman and child living in her rural territory. This was |i 10 more per person than was produced in Kansas, the next highest state. Between 1910 and 1920 the number of bearing and non-bearing fruit trees in all the states of the Union outside California steadily declined, until in 1920 there were forty-four per cent less trees in orchard than there were in 1910. During the same period California recorded an increase of twenty-nine per cent. Since 1921 California has been producing over thirty-five per cent of all the fruit grown in the United States, and producing it far more cheaply than elsewhere. In 1919, for every I1.30 per tree that average fruit- growers in other states produced from trees in orchard, the California grower produced $3.13 — or almost two and a half times as much. There are ninety-nine automobiles tor every hundred farms in California. Every third California farmer has a telephone. Every fourth California farmer has either gas or electric lights in his house. In the rural schools domestic science is fre- quently taught on electric ranges, for modern kitchen equipment is the rule rather than the exception throuq;hout the farming districts. California maintains a higher standard of certification for her school-teachers, and builds bigger and better rural schools than any other state in the Union. The Farm Bureau organization, through which the farm- ers are enabled to meet and discuss their common problems, has also attained an ex- ceptionally high development in California. No wonder that foreign observers, accus- tomed to the relatively primitive conditions of rural life in other quarters of the globe, are amazed when they come to California! The traditional concepts of the tiller of the soil simply do not apply. For the California farmer is an upstanding, independent, progressive, keen-thinking in- dividual. He is the most prosperous farmer in these United States, and beyond question one of the most vital and creative elements in our national life. WHAT THE FUTURE HOLDS The figures here cited represent not the culmination but the beginning of a tremen- dous agricultural development in this state. According to the most conservative esti- mates, California has today over five hun- dred thousand acres of irrigated land avail- able for settlement. The development of new irrigation projects is constantly adding to this total, and the competition of this new land acts as a wholesome check on the inflation of land values. Each year seven thousand new twenty-acre farms are ready for families. From six to ten million more acres await development. Both public and private interests in Cali- fornia are committed unqualifiedly to the idea of the independent farmer as the foun- ^ c?!* TWO IMPORTANT CALIFORNIA INDUSTRIES ^->- (T) California is one of the leading dairy states of the Union. In the production of dairy products Stanislaus County leads, with Humboldt County second. (2) Because of favorable climatic conditions the California hen is a record producer. California's flocks of pedigreed poultry in Petaluma, Sonoma County, Sacramento, and other counties contribute over five million dollars annually to the wealth ot the state. Ww THE FUTURE OF INDUSTRIAL CALIFORNIA 35 dation upon which the future growth and prosperity of the state must rest. California farmers work together with an effectiveness which foreign observers, forget- ting that there is no such thing as "isolation" in California's rural life, view with astonish- ment and admiration. The powerful stabiliz- ing influence of fifty-four producers' co- operatives is rapidly taking farming out ot the class of hazardous industries, besides winning new markets for the California farmer, and, with ever-increasing effective- ness, safeguarding his property and self- respect. WHAT CO-OPERATIVE MARKETING ASSOCIATIONS HAVE DONE In the decade between 191 2 and 1922 the Sunmaid Raisin Growers more than doubled the price the grower got for his raisins, with but little increase in cost to the consumer, at the same time that production was quad- rupled and the total raisin acreage increased seven-fold. The American housewife, who ten years ago was buying about three-quarters of a pound of raisins annually, now consumes nearly five pounds. She does this not only be- CAL. 33.5 U.S. A. 29.70 CAL. CAL. a? 15 U.SJV- u.sjv. 23.70 20.90 CAL. CAL. X36 49 U.S.A. U.S.A. 90 39.18 California's vast agricultural areas show yields per acre that Jar surpass the average per-acre yields for the same crops in the United States as a whole. cause advertising has taught her the value of raisins as food, but because the raisin-growers have vastly improved and standardized the quality of the pack. From 1914 to 1921, the seven years during which the California Peach and Fig Growers have handled the larger proportion of the production of these fruits, an average return to the grower of ten cents a pound was main- tained as against an average price of four and a half cents per pound during the seven years that preceded the organization of the asso- ciation. Similar achievements have been re- corded by other producers' co-operatives. THE FUTURE OF INDUSTRIAL CALIFORNIA California is now eighth among all the states of the Union in the value of her manufactured products. Over the past decade her industrial growth shows a rapid rise, corresponding closely to the development of cheap power from hydroelectric sources. In i()og California produced $^2g,j6o,^28 worth of manufactured products. By 1^20 the total had risen to $i,g8i,204,y6i — an increase of 2/j per cent. T I/' ]f ^HE increase not only represents bulk production, but variety of industries. The variety and expansion of these new industries have afforded opportunities for labor, so that the unemployment prob- lem which has affected every other state has been practically negligible in California. Another striking indication of the eco- nomic condition of California is to be found in the fact that her per-capita wealth in 1920 was I2469 as compared to an average for the United States of only $1776 — a difference of 39.02 per cent. Industrial expansion has gone ahead in hand with the imports and exports of Cali- fornia's international trading centers. The imports of San Francisco alone amounted in 1920 to ^212,000,000, and constituted 54.19 -2?J» «feD -<-^ IN THE DELTA OF THE SACRAMENTO A few acres of this rich bottom land are sufficient, if intensively cultivated, to yield a comfortable income, (l} Farm produce going to market via river boat (see graph p. 24). (T) California's rice crop averages twenty million dollars annually, (s) Typical valley ranch, showing intensive cultivation, with beans planted between the rows of young fruit trees. (V) Sutter Fort, near Sacramento, the state capital. 36 BREEDING A SUPERIOR RACE The groisth of manufacture in California in the years be- tween igog and igig is pictured above — an increase of 54.6 per cent in number of manufacturing plants. When we consider the remarkable growth and prosperity shown by agriculture as a competing occupation this increase is sur- prising. per cent of the total imports of the Pacific Coast. San Francisco's exports totaled ^226,- 000,000 in 1920, or 44.29 per cent of all the exports going out of Pacific Coast ports. California industry, even more than Cali- fornia agriculture, looks to the snows of the Sierra for growth and sustenance. The same snow-water that irrigates the farmers' fields and provides water and light for the towns turns the wheels of what will one day be a great industrial as well as agricultural em- pire. The eleven western states have already developed twenty-two times as much hydro- electric power as all the rest of the United States put together. The average citizen of California uses twice as much hydroelectric current as the resident of New England, for example, and pays considerably less per kilowatt hour. The installed capacity of California's power companies increased from 513,903 h.p. in 1910 to 1,207,419 H.p. in 1920, and it is predicted that by 1930 this total will have risen to 3,136,588 h.p. Industrially, the eleven western states must be considered more or less as a unit. It is estimated that the present power development in the eleven western states of 2,492,048 h.p. will have in- creased by 1930 to 5,522,416 h.p. of which, 2,643,956 h.p. is represented by hydroelectric development. The Journal of Electricity and Western Industry estimates that fifteen billion dollars will be spent during the next ten years in the eleven western states in the twelve most im- portant fields of agricultural and industrial development. This figure covers capital ex- penditures only, and does not include oper- ating expense, which amounts to several times this sum and covers the items of wages paid, money spent for living costs, and practically all expenditures for primary materials, small tools, and like factors of production. Surely here is a field for the builder, the engineer, the creative business man, organ- izer, promoter. Whatever your profession or business, there is a chance for you to throw yourself into the mounting stream of western development and build your own fortune at the same time that you are building the new West. BREEDING A SUPERIOR RACE It is a fact, recently established beyond question by a report of the United States Children's Bureau, that California children grow to greater weight and height for their ages than the average children of the United States. When these children reach college their promise is fulfilled, as is evidenced by the number of tennis, track, and football stars California has produced in recent years. A NOTHER index of health conditions /^V is the infant mortality rate. The A )\ State of California shows one of the lowest infant mortality rates in the country, with San Francisco third lowest among the metropolitan cities, and Berkeley the lowest of all cities between fifty thousand and one hundred thousand population. Given this superior human material with which to work, California educators have -2?J» 'iS^ THE GREAT WHITE SHRINE OF MT. SHASTA >m-^ A legend of the Klamath Indians has it that Mt. Shasta was the first mountain to come from the hand of the Creator, and that subsequent creations never quite equaled that first masterpiece. Five living glaciers are still sculpturing the dome of Shasta. Mineral springs are numerous in this region, which offers countless attractions to the sightseer, as well as exceptional rewards to the orchardist and to the cattleman. 1.^ « nil ■I -^ ^ fc.Spr ^iu ►iif<^' t. -^l BREEDING A SUPERIOR RACE .39 gone far. In the fall of 1922 over twenty thou- sand students were registered in the Oniver- sity of California, making it the largest uni- versity in the United States and the second largest in the world. This university, through its Extension Division, has made the state its campus in a very real sense. The College ot Agriculture has knit itself intimately and constructively into the rural lite of the state, and the value of its services to agriculture can scarcely be measured. Besides its resident teaching departments at Berkeley, Davis, and Riverside, it maintains a large research staff whose work has contributed importantly to the development of new crops, the im- provement of agricultural methods, and the study of marketing problems. EXTENSION TEACHING The Extension Division of the university, working through the highly developed Farm Bureau Organization, maintains Farm Ad- visers, Home Demonstration Agents, and Boys and Girls Clubs in practically every county of the state. California has worked out her own system of junior colleges, whereby the student may take his first two years of collegiate work in his own town, saving the burden of college residence elsewhere and remaining under home influence. Seventeen such junior col- leges have been established in cities where university instruction is not available. In addition there are twenty-two colleges in the state, eight normal schools, and eight- een special schools. In the field of secondary education the consolidation movement has gained remark- able headway in the rural districts. Buildings costing a quarter of a million dollars are not uncommon, to which children are brought and returned by motor-bus. The equipment of these schools would do credit to the smaller eastern colleges, and includes gym- nasiums, baths, assembly-rooms, and thea- ters. They serve whole countrysides as community centers. Physical education has been made an important feature of the school lite through the compulsory physical educa- «!o 1910 366.778 1920 579, 111 The increase in the attendance in the schools of California during igio-ig20 has been 55./ per cent as against an increase in population of only 44.1 per cent. 'This increase in school population is no doubt due to the longer period devoted to the education of the youth, an index of growing prosperity and cultural progress. tion law which requires each student to spend one hour daily in the gymnasium or in the playground. In Oakland the Playground Department gives every individual child a chance to learn tennis, and it is planned soon to introduce the teaching of golf. RISING STANDARDS The rising standards of California's schools are indicated by the steady increase in the per-capita cost of education. Between 1919 and 1920 the per-capita cost for kindergarten instruction increased from I54.93 to I73.98; for elementary schools, from $49.95 to|6i.99; for high schools, from $146.99 to $172.87. California spent approximately $33,000,000 on her elementary and secondary schools in 1919; in 1920 the figures rose to $47,500,000, an increase of over forty-four per cent. The Russell Sage Foundation, in a study of the cost and efficiency of school systems, published in 1920, found that in practically all of the ten points established as determin- ing school efficiency California divides the honors of leadership with Massachusetts. If, in the fundamental business of education, California can in seventy years rival New England, the source and mainspring of our national culture, what must the future hold? What better place in which to bring up a growing family? =?J» -- (j_}Lake Tahoe, which may be reached in a day's journey by rail or automobile from San Francisco, is a mountain playground so vast that, although many thousands of people spend their summers along its shores, and a good-sized steamer plies its waters, it preserves the appearance and feeling of wilderness. (2}The automobile takes you far, but the more remote hunting and fishing grounds must be reached by pack-train or on toot. -•^•^lia^-: ■»\ ' -^2 - ,> ^m^' PEOPLE PLAY IN CALIFORNIA 43 these camps, in which men and women from ^ every walk of life share the democracy of the out-of-doors, are self-supporting. Many thousands of people used them in 1921. A WHOLE CITY AT PLAY People play in California not only as indi- viduals, but as groups. Sometimes a whole city elects to throw care to the winds and play enthusiastically and single-heartedly for a week at a time. For example, during Sacramento's "Days of Forty-nine" celebra- tion, in May, 1922, when the soberest citizens of the state capital allowed their whiskers to grow long, the women all donned hoop-skirts and bustles, the stores and office buildings on the main street wore false fronts repre- senting the stores, saloons, and dance-halls of the mining days, and the town re-enacted the colorful drama of its beginnings with gay abandon. San Francisco shares this love of pageantry and of the arts in general. During the periodical celebrations of the discovery of the bay by Don Caspar de Portola, the town remembers its Latin origins, there is dancing and singing in the public squares and the confetti is ankle-deep on Market Street. PAGEANTRY Every fall the vineyardists of the Napa Valley and of the Fresno section hold their elaborate Pageants ot the Grape, while the upper Sacramento Valley celebrates the ripening ot the first oranges with an elabo- rate orange and olive exposition. Every May the lovers of the Mountain Play climb to the auditorium on the peak of Tamalpais; every midsummer the Bohemian Club pro- duces an original Grove Play among the mighty redwoods beside the Russian River. Throughout the year, drama is given in the Greek Theater at the University of Cali- fornia, and in the Forest Theater at Carmel. Symphony concerts in the Hollywood Bowl, grand opera in the stadium at Stanford University, dance-pageants of maidenhood on every college campus in the state — all are made possible by a climate that urges the practice of the arts under the open sky. l^j ALASKA CALIFORNIA IDAHO MONTANA COtORADO W 579336 19.172.982 18.712.241 15,917.132 13.290;J54 ACRES ACRES ACRES ACRES ACRES The menace of deforestation does not exist in California, which stands first in forest areas among all the states of the Union, and is only surpassed by the virgin lands of Alaska. There are six acres of forest lands for every man, woman, and child in the state. IN THE LATIN QUARTER Many of the numerous racial groups of this cosmopolitan city have brought over their customs, their dances, their folk-festi- vals, and in the congenial atmosphere of California they thrive with undiminished vigor. In 1921 the combined Italian societies of the city held a seven-day celebration of Dante's six hundredth anniversary, which John Cowper Powys, the English critic, de- clared to be the most interesting folk-festival held in honor of the poet's centennial in the United States. New York struggles in vain to preserve its foreign theaters. But in San Francisco the Spanish, Italian, and French racial groups all have their companies, and in addition fill the store windows of the Latin Quarter with frequent announcements ot testivals, oper- atic performances, dances, etc. Chinatown, besides its drama, has a life all its own, and scarcely a week passes that does not see pic- turesque processions marching along Grant Avenue to the banging accompaniment of the gongs. A CIVIC OPERA COMPANY PLANNED San Francisco now maintains an excellent symphony orchestra, and when the traveling opera companies come to the city the at- tendances break all records. Bv the autumn of 1924 it is planned that ^ — ^-^^J* -<-^ BEAUTIFUL MARIN COUNTY ©Great crowds assemble every year in a natural amphitheater near the crest of Mt. Tamalpais to witness the production of the Mountain Play. (2) A suburban home in Ross. (3)john Muir's cabin in Muir Woods, at the base of Tamalpais. (I) Corinthian Island and Tiburon seen from the delightful peninsula of Belvedere, with the boats of the Corinthian Yacht Club anchored in the cove. (Forty-five minutes by ferry from San Francisco.) 44 PEOPLE PLAY IN CALIFORNIA POPULATION FARM INCOME TAX AUTOMOBILES HOUSES WIRED PRODUCTS FORELECIMCmf 3.1% 5.4% S-SVo 6.5 % 8.9% California, with only J.2 per cent of the population of the United States, produces §.^ per cent of the farm products of the country; pays 5.5 per cent of the income tax; has d.j per cent of the automobiles; and owns 8.g per cent of the homes wired for electricity. a great memorial opera-house will stand op- posite the City Hall, and that performances will be given by a civic opera company, re- inforced by famous artists from abroad. The collections in the Memorial Museum and in the California Academy of Sciences, both in Golden Gate Park, are constantly being added to. At the Palace of Fine Arts, built during the Exposition, are held notable exhibitions of ancient and modern paintings. Through its lectures, concerts, and reci- tals, devoted to the allied arts of all nations, the San Francisco Museum of Art is playing a role of growing importance in the cultural life of the West. Besides the three or four theaters in which appear the road companies out of New York, there are at least three local stock companies, as well as "little theaters" too numerous to mention. EVERYBODY MOTORS Since there is an automobile for every fifth person in the state and the average family numbers five, practically every man, woman, and child can enjoy motoring. That is why, although the land is one of tremendous dis- tances, Californians exhibit more familiarity with the far corners of their state than you would expect. Since 1909 California has spent on good roads 193,000,000. California standards of «!o ^^ road construction are unusually high. There are 6259 miles of paved highways in the state at present, and it is planned to im- prove an additional 5560 miles. This does not include the remarkable scenic boulevards developed by the cities, or the network of mountain roads which afford scenic views unsurpassed anywhere in the world. Last year some 23,000 motor cars chugged over the passes of the Sierra and down into the sunny foothills and valleys of California — tourists drivmg these roads, most of them for the first time. Six months later one out of every three of these visitors had taken out a permanent license-plate for his car! They came as tourists — they remained as Californians. They found what you will find when you come to California — that for those who bring ability and a fair stake to start with, California holds a richer life and a wider opportunity. CHOOSE YOUR TOMORROW IN CALIFORNIA The leaders of California's business, profes- sional, and social life today are, for the most part, the sons and daughters of the men and women who in the middle of the last century elected to live their tomorrows in the sunny land of California, did the strenuous work of pioneering, and reaped the pioneer's reward. The perils and the grinding struggle of pioneering in California belong to the past. But the pioneer's opportunities are still open — in fact, they are probably richer and more numerous today than they were in the mag- nificent days of '49. Among the leading Californians of 1950 will be the men and women who elect to seize these opportunities, come West, and ride to prosperity on the tidal wave of a state development destined, unless all prophecies fail, to triple California's population in less than thirty years. Whoever you are, if the spirit of the pioneer is in you — if you are a worker, a dreamer, a builder — there is a place and a chance for you in California. There is a chance for you to live health- fully out-of-doors in a bland and benignant Q?5« THREE VIEWS OF ALAMEDA COUNTY ^->- (T)Oakland City Hall, seen across Lake Merritt, a good-sized body of water which provides excellent recreational facilities at the heart of this progressive city. (2) The bell-tower at Mills College, the leading women's college of the West, located a few miles outside Oakland. (^The Campanile Tower of the University of California, Berke- ley, a landmark which may be seen from every part of the bay region. WHAT CALIFORNIANS INC. WILL DO FOR YOU 47 climate, amid scenery which is a perpetual challenge and delight, among people who are almost universally friendly and helpful to the stranger. There is a chance for you to work as you have never worked before, to laugh and talk and cultivate your friends as you have never done before. There is a chance for you to find yourself, and in finding yourself make your own indi- vidual contribution to a young and develop- ing civilization, full of hope, full of promise, rich with tree, creative choices. It is impossible in this booklet to do more than hint at these things. In a world disillusioned, maimed, and staggering from the catastrophe of the great war, California stands forth as a tremendous reservoirof power and productivity, of health and youth and hope. WHAT CALIFORNIANS INC. WILL DO FOR YOU Californians Inc. is organized with the purpose of serving without charge the tourist and pros- pective settler in California. It maintains a central bureau of information, adequately staffed to furnish authentic information as to agriculture, commerce, industry, and recreation, and will undertake to answer with carefully verified facts any question you may ask about California. ^^^~^.'\LIFORNIANS INC. has connec- choices, with their respective merits fairly (I tions in practically every county of described. ^.^^the state, so that impartial informa tion regarding any particular locality is promptly obtainable. Close relations are maintained with all the various public and private agencies whose work is such that they are in a position to serve the prospective settler with valuable information and advice. If you are a farmer, Californians Inc. will help you to find good land at a reasonable cost, and to become acquainted in the short- est possible time with the various basic fac- tors of agricultural production in California, where conditions may differ very consider- ably from what you are accustomed to else- where. If you are an industrialist, Californians Inc. will help you to survey the industrial opportunities in the state and establish your- self in the shortest possible time with the maximum advantage. If you are a professional man, Californians Inc. will put you in touch with the particu- lar professional groups who can best help you in getting settled. If you simply want a place to live, Cali- fornians Inc. will do its best to spread before you impartially a wide variety of possible If you are a tourist, Californians Inc. will provide you with maps, texts, introductions — everything that might help you to see all of this marvelous state with a maximum of comfort and pleasure. All this is done with the object of eliminat- ing waste of time and of money — waste to you and waste to the state, which has a very practical interest in seeing that new settlers come here properly financed and adequately informed concerning the basic things upon which their future happiness in California depends. When you come to California, you are invited to make the offices of this organiza- tion in San Francisco your headquarters. We shall do everything in our power to see that you are happily launched as a resident of California, with every advantage that careful planning and a genuine sympathetic interest in your welfare can give you. * * * Meanwhile, write for whatever further specific information you wish— regarding homes and living conditions, agricultural opportunities, or recreations and scenic attractions . Address Cali- fornians Inc., Headquarters, San Francisco. «Co- -G2!» -<-# COSMOPOLITAN SAN FRANCISCO ©Championship golf on the Municipal Links beside the Golden Gate. @The street-corner flower-stands bloom twelve months in the year, and flowers are incredibly cheap, (s) San Francisco's Chinatown, the most fascinating foreign quarter in America. (T) Band-stand in Golden Gate Park. @A typical Sunday-afternoon crowd at the beach. CALIFORNIANS INC. OFFICERS President, K. R. Kingsbury, President, Standard Oil Company (California) Viee-Preddent, Colbert Coldwell, Coldwell, Cornwall &f Banker Vice-Preiident, L. W. Harris, Vice-President, Ames Harris Neville Company Vice-President, Leon G. Lew, Vice-President, Jules Levy & Brother Secretary, Charles K. Field, Editor, Sunset Magazine Treasurer, J. J. Fagan, Vice-President, Crocker National Bank Manager, B. M. Rastall DIRECTORS Wallace M. Alexander, President, Alexander & Baldwin Frank B. Anderson, President, Bank of California C. H. Bentley, Vice-President, California Packing Corporation Wigginton E. Creed, President, Pacific Gas ©" Eledric Company Colbert Coldwell, Coldwell, Cornwall & Banker Jesse Colman, President, Colman Company W. H. Crocker, President, Crocker National Bank A. B. C. Dohrmann, President, Nathan-Dohrmann Company Alfred L Esberg, Capitalist Charles K. Field, Editor, Sunset Magazine Herbert Fleishhacker, President, Anglo & London Paris National Bank L. W. Harris, Vice-President, Ames Harris Neville Company Chas. W. Helser, Vice-President, West Coast Life Insurance Company K. R. Kingsbury, President, Standard Oil Company (California) Frederick J. Koster, President, Koster Company Leon G. Levy, Vice-President, Jules Levy & Brother F. L. Lii'man, President, Wells Fargo Nevada National Bank Atholl McBean, President, Gladding, McBean iSf Company Walton N. Moore, President, Walton N. Moore Dry Goods Company, Inc. B. F. Schlesinger, General Manager, The Emporium Paul Shoup, Vice-President. Southern Pacific Company 017 064 396 3 n