'. r>i>'*' •M;u'i>Ji'' v-;"aV \l iV ^J'iWDNVSO^ '%a3MNn3V\V^ s AWEUNIVERS//) ««an„sjrv S ^ ^ ^lOSANCElfx^ so s ,,H,0FCAIIF0% ^tfOJIl ^OFCA '^^c'Aavjjan-i'^ "^^amv 1/^ ^\\\tUNlVtKi//i o "^/SJIJA Of ^ 'N %130NVS01^' . 5.WEllNIVERy/A. vvlOSANCEtfj:> "^i^liDNV: ^aaAiNaiuv" ^nM-LIBRARYO^^ ^^OFCALIFO% ^OFC/ ^<9Aavaaii-^^ %mv ^HIBRARYQ^ A^ttlBRARYG^^ ^\VlEOfJiVER% \^my\^ ^ur uuiruA'/j^ ^OFCAllFOff/j^ >&Aavaani'^ %133NVS01^ ^WEUNIVERS/A %a3A >^HIBRARYa^ ^WEUNIVERSM ^ ^lOS-ANCElf/^ ^^^•IIBRARYQ^^ li-rl fori iLllTilL evlllBRARYG^. .^WIBRARY<7a ^j:?i3onvsov"<^ .^WEUNIVERy/A .^«EUNIVERS/A ^vlOS/ o '^AajAiNniw'^ ^lOSANCElfjv o "^/saaAiNfi-jwv ^^ojnvDjo"^ '^iifOJiivjjo^ ^TiiaoNvsoi^ %a3A ^OFCAllFOi?^ ^^OFCAUFOftj^ ^^. O "^/^aaAiNrtivw ,;^^t-llBRARY&/- ^ #I1B '^c'Aavaaii^ ^""oxn^ > :.\WEl]N(VER% .V:lOS#CEtFj>- .^vM-UBRARYO^ ^lllBRARYQr^ THE AMERICAN ITALY (OUR ITALY) BY CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER AUTHOR OF "their PILGRIMAGE" "STUDIES IN THE SOUTH AND WEST ' " A LITTLE JOURNEY IN THE WORLD " ETC. WITH MANY ILLUSTRATIONS LONDON JAMES R OSGOOD, McILVAINE & CO. 4D ALBEMARLE STHKRT 1 892 Copyright, 1891, by Harper & Brothkrs. Copyright, 1892, by Harper & Brothers. All rights reserved. Printed at Xew York. U. S. A. 2 867 CONTENTS. ■OHAP. PAGE I. HOW OUR ITALY IS MADE 1 II. OUR CLIMATIC AXD COMMERCIAL MEDITERRANEAN . . . . 10 III. EARLY VICISSITUDES. PRODUCTIONS. SANITARY CLIMATE . 24 IV, THE AVINTER OF OUR CONTENT 42 V, HEALTH AND LONGEVITY 52 VI. IS RESIDENCE HERE AGREEABLE? 65 VII. THE WINTER ON THE COAST 72 VIII. THE GENERAL OUTLOOK. LAND AND PRICES 90 IX. THE ADVANTAGES OF IRRIGATION 99 X. THE CHANCE FOR LABORERS AND SMALL FARMERS. . . .10*7 XL SOME DETAILS OF THE WONDERFUL DEVELOPMENT. . . .114 XII. HOW THE FRUIT PERILS WERE MET. FURTHER DETAILS OF LOCALITIES 128 XIIL THE ADVANCE OF CULTIVATION SOUTHWARD 140 XIV. A LAND OF AGREEABLE HOMES 146 XV. SOME WONDERS BY THE WAY. — YOSEMITE. MARIPOSA TREES. MONTEREY 148 f XVI. FASCINATIONS OF THE DESERT. THE LAGUNA PUEBLO . .163 to ^ XVII. THE HEART OF THE DESERT .177 XVIII, ON THE BRINK OF THE GRAND CANON. THE UNIQUE MARVEL OF NATURE 189 o C 3 APPENDIX 201 INDEX 219 ILLUSTRATIONS. SANTA BARBARA Frontispiece PAGE MOJAVE DESERT 3 MOJAVE INDIAN 4 :M0JAVE INDIAN 5 bird's-eye VIEW OP RIVERSIDE 7 SCENE IN SAN BERNARDINO 11 SCENES IN MONTECITO AND LOS ANGELES 13 FAN-PALM, LOS ANGELES 16 TUCCA-PALM, SANTA BARBARA 17 MAGNOLIA AVENUE, RIVERSIDE 21 AVENUE LOS ANGELES 27 IN THE GARDEN AT SANTA BARBARA MISSION 31 SCENE AT PASADENA , 35 LIVE-OAK NEAR LOS ANGELES 39 MIDWINTER, PASADENA , 53 A TYPICAL GARDEN, NEAR SANTA ANA 57 OLD ADOBE HOUSE, POMONA CI FAN-PALM, FERNANDO ST. LOS ANGELES 63 SCARLET PASSION-VINE 68 ROSE-BUSH, SANTA BARBARA 73 AT AVALON, SANTA CATALINA ISLAND 77 HOTEL DEL CORONADO S3 OSTRICH YARD, CORONADO BEACH 86 YUCCA-PALM 92 DATE-PALM .... 93 RAISIN-CURING .101 IRRIGATION BY ARTESIAN-WKLL SYSTEM 104 IRRIGATION BY PIPE SYSTEM 105 viii ILLUSTRATIONS. PAGE GARDEN SCENE, SANTA ANA 110 A GEAPE-VINE, MONTECITO VALLEY, SANTA BARBARA 116 IRRIGATING AN ORCHARD 120 ORANGE CULTURE .121 IN A FIELD OP GOLDEN PUMPKINS 126- PACKING CHERRIES, POMONA 131 OLIVE-TREES SIX YEARS OLD 136 SEXTON NURSERIES, NEAR SANTA BARBARA 141 SWEETWATER DAM 144 THE YOSEMITE DOME 151 COAST OF MONTEREY . .> 155 CYPRESS POINT 156 NEAR SEAL ROCK 157 LAGUNA-FROM THE SOUTH-EAST 159 CHURCH AT LAGUNA 164 TERRACED HOUSES, PUEBLO OF LAGUNA .... 167 GRAND CANON ON THE COLORADO VIEW FROM POINT SUB- LIME 171 INTERIOR OF THE CHURCH AT LAGUNA 174 GRAND CANON OF THE COLORADO VIEW OPPOSITE POINT SUB- LIME 179 TOURISTS IN THE COLORADO CANON 183 GRAND CANON OF THE COLORADO VIEW FROM THE IIANSE TRAIL 191 OUR ITALY. CHAPTER I. HOW OUK ITALY IS MADE. The traveller who descends into Italy by an Al- pine pass never forgets the surprise and dehght of the transition. In an hour he is whirled down the slopes from the region of eternal snow to the verdure of spring or the ripeness of summer. Suddenly — it may be at a turn in the road — winter is left behind; the plains of Lombardy are in view; the Lake of Como or Maggiore gleams below; there is a tree; there is an orchard; there is a garden; there is a villa overrun with vines ; the singing of birds is heard ; the air is gracious ; the slopes are terraced, and cov- ered with vineyards ; great sheets of silver sheen in the landscape mark the growth of the olive; the dark green orchards of oranges and lemons are starred with gold; the lusty fig, always a temptation as of old, leans invitingly over the stone wall; everywhere are bloom and color under the blue sky ; there are shrines by the way -side, chapels on tlie hill; one hears the melodious bells, the call of the vine - dressers, the laughter of gh'ls. 2 OUE ITALY. The contrast is as great from the Indians of the Mojave Desert, two types of which are here given, to the vine-dre^sers of .the, S^nta Ana Valley. Italy is the laii'd ' of - the imagination, but the sen- sation oil fii^sivbehoMing/i.t from the northern heights, aside from its associations of romance and poetry, can be repeated in onr own land by whoever will cross the burning desert of Colorado, or the savage wastes of the Mojave wilderness of stone and sage-brush, and come suddenly, as he must come by train, into the bloom of Southern California. Let us study a little the physical conditions. The bay of San Diego is about three hundred miles east of San Francisco. The coast line runs south- east, but at Point Conception it turns sharply east, and then curves south-easterly about two hundred and fifty miles to the Mexican coast boundary, the extreme south-west limits of the United States, a few miles below San Diego. This coast, defined by these two hmits, has a southern exposure on the sunniest of oceans. Off this coast, south of Point Conception, lies a chain of islands, curving in posi- tion in conformity with the shore, at a distance of twenty to seventy miles from the main -land. These islands are San Miguel, Santa Rosa, Santa Cruz, Ana- capa, Santa Barbara, San Nicolas, Santa Catalina, San Clemente, and Los Coronados, which lie in Mexican waters. Between this chain of islands and the main- land is Santa Barbara Channel, flowing northward. The great ocean current from the north flows past Point Conception like a mill-race, and makes a suc- tion, or a sort of eddy. It approaches nearer the coast in Lower California, where the return current, HOW OUE ITALY IS MADE. wliicli is much warmer, flows nortliward and westward along the curving shore. The Santa Barbara Channel, which may be called an arm of the Pacific, flows by ■ ^-;:SS^^^^fe^-=JE MOJA^TE DESERT. many a bold jDoint and lovely bay, hke those of San Pedro, Redondo, and Santa Monica; but it has no se- cure harbor, except the magnificent and unique bay of San Diego. The southern and western boundary of Southern California is this mild Pacific sea, studded with rocky and picturesque islands. The northern boundary of this region is ranges of lofty mountains, from five thousand to eleven thousand feet in height, some of them always snow -clad, which run eastward from Point Conception nearly to the Colorado Desert. Tliey are parts of the Sierra Nevada range, but they take OUR ITALY. X'^JllS various names, Santa Ynes, San Gabriel, San Bernar- dino, and tliey are spoken of all together as the Sierra Madre. In the San Gabriel group, "Old Baldy" lifts its snow-peak over nine thousand feet, while the San Bernardino "Grayback" rises over eleven thousand feet above the sea. Southward of this, running down into San Diego Coun- ty, is the San Jacinto range, also snow -clad; and eastward the land falls rapidly away into the Salt Des- ert of the Colorado, in which is a depression about three hundred feet below the Pacific. The Point Arguilles, which is above Point Conception, by the aid of the outlying islands, deflects the cold current from the north off the coast of Southern California, and the mountain ranges from Point Con- ception east divide the State of Cal- ifornia into two climatic regions, the southern ha\"ing more warmth, less rain and fog, milder winds, and less variation of daily temperature than the climate of Central Cali- fornia to the north.* Other striking climatic condi- tions are produced by the daily interaction of the Pacific Ocean and the Colorado Desert, infinitely di- versified in minor particulars by the exceedingly bro- ken character of the region — a jumble of bare mount- ains, fruitful foot-hills, and rich valleys. It would be * For these and other observations upon ph3'sical and climatic conditions I am wholly indebted to Dr. P. C. Remondino and ]\Ir. T. S. Van Dyke, of San Diego, both scientific and competent authorities. HOW OUE ITALY IS MADE. only from a balloon that one could get an adequate idea of this strange land. The United States has here, then, a unique corner of the earth, without its like in its own vast territory, and unparalleled, so far as I know, in the world. Shut off from sympathy with external conditions by the giant mountain ranges and the desert wastes, it has its own climate unaffected by cosmic changes. Except a tidal wave from Japan, nothing would seem to be able to affect or disturb it. The whole of Italy feels more or less the chmatic variations of the rest of Europe. All our Atlantic coast, all our interior basin from Texas to Manitoba, is in climatic sym- pathy. Here is a region larger than New England which manufactures its own weather and refuses to import any other. With considerable varieties of tem- perature according to elevation or protection from the ocean breeze, its climate is nearly, on the whole, as agreeable as that of the Hawaiian Isl- ands, though pitched in a lower key, and with greater variations between day and night. The key to its pecu- liarity, aside from its southern expos- ure, is the Colorado Desert. That desert, waterless and treeless, is cool at night and intok^rably hot in the daytime, sending up a vast column of hot air, which cannot escape eastAvard, for Arizona manufactures a like column. It flows high above the mountains west- ward till it strikes the Pacific and parts with its heat, 6 OUR ITALY. creating an immense vacumn which is filled by the air from the coast flowing up the slope and over the range, and plunging down 6000 feet into the desert. "It is easy to understand," says Mr.Yan Dyke, making his observations from the summit of the Cuyamaca, in San Diego County, 6500 feet above the sea-level, "how land thus rising a mile or more in fifty or sixty miles, rising away from the coast, and falling off abruptly a mile deep into the driest and hottest of American des- erts, could have a great variety of climates. . . . Only ten miles away on the east the summers are the hottest, and only sixty miles on the west the coolest known in the United States (except on this coast), and between them is every combination that mountains and valleys can produce. And it is easy to see whence comes the sea-breeze, the glory of the California summer. It is passing us here, a gentle breeze of six or eight miles an hoiu\ It is flowing over this great ridge directly into the basin of the Colorado Desert, 6000 feet deep, where the temperature is probably 120°, and perhaps liigher. For many leagues each side of us this cur- rent is thus flowing at the same speed, and is prob- ably half a mile or more in depth. About sundown, when the air on the desert cools and descends, the current will change and come the other way, and flood these western slopes with an air as pure as that of the Sahara and nearly as dry. " The air, heated on the western slopes by the sea, would by rising produce considerable suction, which could be filled only from the sea, but that alone would not make the sea-breeze as dry as it is. The principal suction is caused by the rising of heated air from the great desert. . . . On the top of old Grayback (in San HOW OUR ITALY IS MADE. BIRD S-EYE VIEW OK HIVEIISIDE. 1? (1! Bernardino) one can feel it [this breeze] setting west- ward, while in the canons, (3000 feet below, it is blow- ing eastward. . . . All over Southern California the conditions of this breeze are about the same, the great Mojave Desert and the valley of the San Joaquin above operating in the same way, assisted by intei'ior 8 OUE ITALY. plains and slopes. Hence these deserts, that at first seem to be a disadvantage to the land, are the great conditions of its climate, and are of far more value than if they were like the prairies of Ilhnois. Fort- unately they will remain deserts forever. Some parts will in time be reclaimed by the waters of the Col- orado River, but wet spots of a few hundred thousand acres would be too trifling to affect general results, for milhons of acres of burning desert would forever defy all attempts at irrigation or settlement." This desert-born breeze explains a seeming anom- aly in regard to the humidity of this coast. I have noticed on the sea -shore that salt does not become damp on the table, that the Portuguese fishermen on Point Loma are drying their fish on the shore, and that while the hydrometer gives a humidity as high as seventy-four, and higher at times, and fog may pre- vail for three or fom^ days continuously, the fog is rather " dry," and the general impression is that of a dry instead of the damp and chilhng atmosphere such as exists in foggy times on the Atlantic coast. " From the study of the origin of this breeze we see," says Mr. Van Dyke, "why it is that a wind coming from the broad Pacific should be drier than the dry land-breezes of the Atlantic States, caus- ing no damp walls, swelling doors, or rusting guns, and even on the coast drying up, without salt or soda, meat cut in strips an inch thick and fish much thicker." At times on the coast the air contains plenty of moisture, but with the rising of this breeze the moist- ure decreases instead of increases. It should be said also that this constantly returning current of air is HOW OUE ITALY IS MADE. 9 always pure, coming in contact nowhere with marshy or malarious influences nor any agency injurious to health. Its character causes the whole coast from Santa Barbara to San Diego to be an agreeable place of residence or resort summer and winter, while its daily inflowing tempers the heat of the far inland val- leys to a dehghtful atmosphere in the shade even in midsummer, while cool nights are everywhere the rule. The greatest surprise of the traveller is that a region which is in perpetual bloom and fruitage, where semi- tropical fruits mature in perfection, and the most delicate flowers dazzle the eye with color the winter through, should have on the whole a low temperature, a chmate never enervating, and one requiring a dress of woollen in every month. CHAPTER II. OUE CLIMATIC AND COMMEKCIAL MEDITEKEANEAN. Winter as we understand it east of the Rockies does not exist. I scarcely know how to di\dde the seasons. There are at most but three. Spring may be said to begin with December and end in April; summer, mth May (whose days, however, are often cooler than those of January), and end with Septem- ber ; while October and November are a mild autumn, when nature takes a partial rest, and the leaves of the deciduous trees are gone. But how shall we classify a climate in which the strawberry (none yet in my ex- perience equal to the Eastern berry) may be eaten in every month of the year, and ripe figs may be picked from July to March ? What shall I say of a frost (an affair of only an hour just before sunrise) which is hardly anywhere severe enough to disturb the dehcate heliotrope, and even in the deepest valleys where it may chill the orange, will respect the bloom of that fruit on contiguous ground fifty or a hundred feet higher? We boast about many things in the United States, about our bhzzards and our cyclones, our inun- dations and our areas of low pressiu'e, oiu' hottest and our coldest places in the world, but. what can we say for this little corner which is practically frostless, and yet never had a sunstroke, knows nothing of thun- der-storms and hghtning, never experienced a cyclone, OUR CLIMATIC AND COMMERCIAL MEDITERRANEAN. 11 which is SO warm that the year round one is tem]3ted to hve out-of-doors, and so cold that woollen garments are never uncomfortable? Nature here, in this pro- tected and petted area, has the knack of being genial without being enervating, of being stimulating with- out " bracing " a person into the tomb. I think it con- ducive to equanimity of spirit and to longevity to sit in an orange grove and eat the fruit and inhale the fragrance of it while gazing upon a snow-mountain. SCENE IN SAN BERNARDINO. This southward-facing portion of California is irri- gated by many streams of pure water rapidly falling from the mountains to the sea. The more important are the Santa Clara, the Los Angeles and San Gabriel, the Santa Ana, the Santa Margarita, the San Luis Rey, the San Bernardo, the San Diego, and, on the Mexican border, the Tia Juana. Many of them go dry or flow underground in the summer months (or, as the Californians say, the bed of the river gets on top), but most of them can be used for artificial imga- 12 OUR ITALY. tion. In the lowlands water is sufficiently near the surface to moisten the soil, which is broken and culti- vated; in most regions good wells are reached at a small depth, in others artesian -wells spout up abun- dance of water, and considerable portions of the re- gions best known for fruit are watered by irrigating ditches and pipes supplied by ample reservoirs in the mountains. From natural rainfall and the sea moist- ure the mesas and hills, which look arid before plough- ing, produce large crops of grain when cultivated after the annual rains, without artificial watering. Southern California has been slowly understood even by its occupants, who have wearied the world with boasting of its productiveness. Originally it was a vast cattle and sheep ranch. It was supposed that the land was worthless except for grazing. Held in princely ranches of twenty, fifty, one hundred thou- sand acres, in some cases areas larger than German principalities, tens of thousands of cattle roamed along the watercourses and over the mesas, vast flocks of sheep cropped close the grass and trod the soil into hard-pan. The owners exchanged cattle and sheep for corn, grain, and garden vegetables ; they had no faith that they could grow cereals, and it was too much trouble to procure water for a garden or a fruit or- chard. It was the firm belief that most of the rolling mesa land was unfit for cultivation, and that neither forest nor fruit trees would grow without irrigation. Between Los Angeles and Redondo Beach is a ranch of 35,000 acres. Seventeen years ago it was owned by a Scotchman, who used the whole of it as a sheep ranch. In selling it to the present owner he warned him not to waste time by attempting to farm it; he ^ A' SCENES IN MONTECITO AND LOS ANGELES. 14 OUR ITALY. himself raised no fruit or vegetables, planted no trees, and bought all his corn, wheat, and barley. The pur- chaser, however, began to experiment. He j)lanted trees and set out orchards which grew, and in a couple of years he wrote to the former owner that he had 8000 acres in fine wheat. To say it in a word, there is scarcely an acre of the tract which is not highly pro- ductive in barley, wheat, corn, potatoes, while consid- erable parts of it are especially adapted to the English walnut and to the citrus fruits. On this route to the sea the road is lined with gar- dens. Nothing could be more unpromising in appear- ance than this soil before it is ploughed and pulverized by the cultivator. It looks like a barren waste. We passed a tract that was offered three years ago for twelve dollars an acre. Some of it now is rented to Chinamen at thirty dollars an acre ; and I saw one field of two acres off which a Chinaman has sold in one season $750 worth of cabbages. The truth is that almost all the land is wonderfully productive if intelhgently handled. The low ground has water so near the surface that the pulverized soil will draw up sufficient moisture for the crops ; the mesa, if sown and cultivated after the annual rains, matures grain and corn, and sustains vines and fruit- trees. It is singular that the first settlers should never have discovered this productiveness. When it became apparent — that is, productiveness without artificial wa- tering — there spread abroad a notion that irrigation generally was not needed. We shall have occasion to speak of this more in detail, and I will now only say, on good authority, that while cultivation, not to keep down the weeds only, but to keep the soil stirred and OUK CLIMATIC AND COMMERCIAL MEDITERRANEAN. 15 prevent its baking, is the prime necessity for almost all land in Southern California, there are portions where irrigation is always necessary, and there is no spot where the yield of fruit or grain will not be quadru- pled by judicious irrigation. There are places where irrigation is excessive and harmful both to the qual- ity and quantity of oranges and grapes. The history of the extension of cultivation in the last twenty and especially in the past ten years from the foot-hills of the Sierra Madre in Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties southward to San Diego is very curious. Experiments were timidly tried. Every acre of sand and sage-bush reclaimed southward was supposed to be the last capable of profitable farming or fruit-growing. It is unsafe now to say of any land that has not been tried that it is not good. In every valley and on every hill-side, on the mesas and in the sunny nooks in the mountains, nearly anything mil grow, and the application of water produces marvel- lous results. From San Bernardino and Redlands, Riverside, Pomona, Ontario, Santa Anita, San Gabriel, Pasadena, all the way to Los Angeles, is almost a con- tinuous fruit garden, the green areas only empha- sized by wastes yet unreclaimed ; a land of charming cottages, thriving towns, hospitable to the fruit of every clime; a land of perpetual sun and ever-flowing breeze, looked down on by purple mountain ranges tipped here and there with enduring snow. And what is in progress here will be seen before long in almost every part of this wonderful land, for conditions of soil and climate are essentially everywhere the same, and capital is finding out how to store in and bring from the fastnesses of the mountains rivers of clear 16 OUR ITALY. FAN rAI.Ar, I>OS ANGELES. water taken at such elevations that the whole ara- ble surface can be UTigated. The development of the country has only just begun. If the reader will look upon the map of California he will see that the eight counties that 'form Southern California — San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Ventura, Kern, Los Angeles, San Bernardino, Orange, and San Diego — appear very mountainous. He will also notice that the eastern slopes of San Bernardino and San Diego are deserts. But this is an immense area. San Diego County alone is as large as Massachusetts, Con- OUE CLIMATIC AND COMMERCLIL MEDITEREANEAN. 17 necticut, and Rhode Island combined, and the amount of arable land in the valleys, on the foot-hills, on the rolling mesas, is enormous, and capable of sustaining a dense population, for its fertility and its yield to the acre under cultivation are incomparable. The reader will also notice another thing. With the railroads now built and certain to be built through all this di- versified region, round from the Santa Barbara Mount- ains to the San Bernardino, the San Jacinto, and YUCCA-PALM, SANTA BARBARA. 18 OUR ITALY. down to Cuyamaca, a ride of an hour or two hours brings one to some point on the 250 miles of sea-coast — a sea -coast genial, inviting in winter and summer, never harsh, and rarely tempestuous like the Atlantic shore. Here is our Mediterranean ! Here is our Italy! It is a Mediterranean without marshes and without mal- aria, and it does not at all resemble the Mexican GuK, which we have sometimes tried to fancy was like the classic sea that laves Africa and Europe. Nor is this region Italian in appearance, though now and then some bay with its purple hills running to the blue sea, its surrounding mesas and canons blooming in semi- tropical luxuriance, some conjunction of shore and mountain, some golden color, some white light and sharply defined shadows, some refinement of fines, some poetic tints in violet and ashy ranges, some ultramarine in the sea, or delicate blue in the sky, will remind the traveller of more than one place of beauty in Southern Italy and Sicily. It is a Mediterranean with a more equable climate, warmer winters and cooler summers, than the North Mediterranean shore can offer; it is an Italy whose mountains and valleys give almost every variety of elevation and temperature. But it is our commercial Mediterranean. The time is not distant when this corner of the United States will produce in abundance, and year after year with- out failure, all the fruits and nuts which for a thou- sand years the civilized world of Em'ope has looked to the Mediterranean to supply. We shall not need any more to send over the Atlantic for raisins, English walnuts, almonds, figs, ohves, prunes, oranges, lemons, limes, and a variety of other things which we know OUE CLIMATIC AND COMMERCIAL MEDITERRANEAN. 19 commercially as Mediterranean products. We have all this Inxurj^ and wealth at our doors, within our hmits. The orange and the lemon we shall still bring from many places ; the date and the pineapple and the banana will never grow here except as illustrations of the chmate, but it is difficult to name any fruit of the temperate and semi -tropic zones that Southern Cah- fornia cannot be relied on to produce, from the guava to the peach. It will need further experiment to determine what are the more profitable products of this soil, and it will take longer experience to cultivate them and send them to market in perfection. The pomegranate and the apple thrive side by side, but the apple is not good here unless it is grown at an elevation where frost is certain and occasional snow may be expected. There is no longer any doubt about the peach, the nectarine, the pear, the grape, the orange, the lemon, the apricot, and so on; but I believe that the greatest profit will be in the products that cannot be grown elsewhere in the United States — the products to which we have long given the name of Mediterranean — the olive, the fig, the raisin, the hard and soft shell almond, and the walnut. The orange will of course be a staple, and constantly improve its reputation as better varieties are raised, and the right amount of irrigation to pro- duce the finest and sweetest is ascertained. It is still a wonder that a land in which there was no indigenous product of value, or to which cultiva- tion could give value, should be so hospitable to every sort of tree, shrub, root, grain, and fiower that can be brought here from any zone and temperature, and that many of these foreigners to the soil grow here 20 OUK ITALY. with a vigor and productiveness surpassing those in their native land. This bewildering adaptability has misled many into unprofitable experiments, and the very rapidity of growth has been a disadvantage. The land has been advertised by its monstrous vege- table productions, which are not fit to eat, and but testify to the fertility of the soil ; and the reputation of its fruits, both deciduous and citrus, has suffered by specimens sent to Eastern markets whose sole rec- ommendation was size. Even in the vineyards and orange orchards quality has been sacrificed to quan- tity. Nature here responds generously to every en- couragement, but it cannot be forced without taking its revenge in the return of inferior quality. It is just as true of Southern California as of any other land, that hard work and sagacity and experience are neces- sary to successful horticulture and agriculture, but it is undeniably true that the same amount of well- directed industry upon a much smaller area of land will produce more return than in almost any other section of the United States. Sensible people do not any longer pay much attention to those tempting little arithmetical sums by which it is demonstrated that paying so much for ten acres of barren land, and so much for planting it with vines or oranges, the in- come in three years will be a competence to the in- vestor and his family. People do not spend much time now in gaping over abnormal vegetables, or try- ing to convince themselves that wines of every known variety and flavor can be produced within the limits of one flat and well- watered field. Few now expect to make a fortune by cutting arid land up into twenty- feet lots, but notwithstanding the extravagance of re- OUR CLIMATIC AND COMMERCLIL MEDITERRANEAN. 23 cent speculation, the value of arable land has steadily appreciated, and is not likely to recede, for the return from, it, either in fruits, vegetables, or grain, is dem- onstrated to be beyond the experience of farming else- where. Land cannot be called dear at one hundred or one thousand dollars an acre if the annual return from it is fifty or five hundred dollars. The climate is most agreeable the year through. There are no unpleasant months, and few unpleasant days. The eucalyptus grows so fast that the trimmings from the trees of a small grove or highway avenue will in four or five years furnish a family with its firewood. The strong, fattening alfalfa gives three, four, five, and even six harvests a year. Nature needs httle rest, and, with the encouragement of water and fertilizers, apparently none. But all this prodigality and easiness of life de- tracts a httle from ambition. The lesson has been slowly learned, but it is now pretty well conned, that hard work is as necessary here as elsewhere to thrift and indei^endence. The difference between this and many other parts of our land is that nature seems to work with a man, and not against him. CHAPTER III. EAELY VICISSITUDES. — PEODUCTIONS. — SANITAET CLIMATE. SouTHEKN Califoenia has rapidly passed through varied experiences, and has not yet had a fair chance to show the world what it is. It had its period of ro- mance, of pastoral life, of lawless adventure, of crazy speculation, all within a hundred years, and it is just now entering upon its period of solid, civihzed devel- opment. A certain light of romance is cast upon this coast by the Spanish voyagers of the sixteenth cen- tury, hut its history begins with the establishment of the chain of Franciscan missions, the first of which was founded by the great Father Junipero Serra at San Diego in 1769. The fathers brought with them the Yine and the olive, reduced the savage Indians to industrial pursuits, and opened the way for that ran- chero and adobe civilization which, down to the com- ing of the American, in about 1840, made in this re- gion the most picturesque hfe that our continent has ever seen. Following this is a period of desperado adventure and revolution, of pioneer State - building ; and then the advent of the restless, the cranky, the invalid, the fanatic, fi*om every other State in the Union. The first experimenters in making homes seem to have fancied that they had come to a ready- made elysium — the idle man's heaven. They seem to EAULY VICISSITUDES, PKODUCTIONS, ETC. 2» have brought with them httle knowledge of agricult- ure or horticulture, were ignorant of the conditions of success in this soil and climate, and left behind the good industrial maxims of the East. The result was a period of chance experiment, one in which extrava- gant expectation and boasting to some extent took the place of industry. The imagination was heated by the novelty of such varied and rapid productiveness. Men's minds were inflamed by the apparently limitless possibilities. The invahd and the speculator throng- ed the transcontinental roads leading thither. In this condition the frenzy of 1886-87 was ine^dtable. I saw something of it in the winter of 1887. The scenes then daily and commonplace now read hke the wild- est freaks of the imagination. The bubble collapsed as ■ suddenly as it expanded. Many were ruined, and left the country. More were merely ruined in their great expectations. The spec- ulation was in town lots. AYhen it subsided it left the climate as it was, the fertility as it was, and the value of arable land not reduced. Marvellous as the boom was, I think the present recuperation is still more wonderful. In 1890, to be sure, I miss the bustle of the cities, and the creation of towns in a week under the hammer of the auctioneer. But in all the cities, and most of the villages, there has been growth in substantial buildings, and in the necessities of civic life — good sewerage, water supply, and gen- eral organization; while the country, as the acreage of vines and oranges, wheat and barley, grain and corn, and the shipments by rail testify, has improved more than at any other period, and connnerce is be- giiniing to feel the impulse of a genuine prosperity, ^6 OUR ITALY. based upon the intelligent cultivation of the ground. School -houses have multiplied; libraries have been founded ; many '' boom " hotels, built in order to sell city lots in the sage-brush, have been turned into schools and colleges. There is immense rivalry between different sec- tions. Every Californian thinks that the spot where his house stands enjoys the best climate and is the most fertile in the world ; and while you are with him you think he is justified in his opinion ; for this rival- ry is generally a wholesome one, backed by industry. I do not mean to say that the habit of tall talk is al- together lost. Whatever one sees he is asked to be- heve is the largest and best in the world. The gentle- man of the whip who showed us some of the finest places in Los Angeles — places that in their wealth of flowers and semi-tropical gardens would rouse the enthusiasm of the most jaded traveller — was asked "whether there were any finer in the city. "Finer? Hundreds of them ;" and then, meditatively and re- gretfully, " I should not dare to show you the best." The semi-ecclesiastical custodian of the old adobe mis- sion of San Gabriel explained to us the twenty por- traits of apostles on the walls, all done by Murillo. As they had got out of repair, he had them all re- painted by the best artist. " That one," he said, sim- ply, " cost ten dollars. It often costs more to repaint a picture than to buy an original." The temporary evils in the train of the "boom" are fast disappearing. I was told that I should find the country stagnant. Trade, it is true, is only slowly coming in, real -estate deals are sleeping, but in all avenues of solid prosperity and productiveness the EAULY VICISSITUDES, PRODUCTIONS, ETC. 29 country is the reverse of stagnant. Another misap- prehension this visit is correcting. I was told not to visit Southern California at this season on account of the heat. But I have no experience of a more de- hghtful summer climate than this, especially on or near the coast. In secluded valleys in the interior the thermometer rises in the daytime to 85°, 90°, and occasionally 100°, hut I have found no place in them where there was not daily a refreshing breeze from the ocean, where the dryness of the air did not make the heat seem much less than it was, and where the nights were not agreeably cool. My belief is that the summer climate of Southern Cahfornia is as desirable for pleasure- seekers, for invahds, for workmen, as its winter ch- mate. -It seems to me that a coast temperature 60° to 75°, stimulating, without harshness or dampness, is about the perfection of summer weather. It should be said, however, that there are secluded valleys which become very hot in the daytime in midsum- mer, and intolerably dusty. The dust is the great annoyance everywhere. It gives the whole landscape an ashy tint, like some of our Eastern fields and way- sides in a dry August. The verdure and the wild flowers of the rainy season disappear entirely. There is, however, some picturesque compensation for tliis dust and lack of green. The mountains and hills and great i:)lains take on wonderful hues of brown, yellow, and red. I write this paragraph in a high chamber in the Hotel del Coronado, on the great and fertile beach in front of San Diego. It is the 2d of June. Looking southward, I see the great expanse of the Pacific 30 OUR ITALY. Ocean, sparkling in the sun as blue as the waters at Amaifi. A low surf beats along the miles and miles of white sand continually, with the impetus of far-off seas and trade -mnds, as it has beaten for thousands of years, with one unending roar and swish, and occasional shocks of sound as if of distant thunder on the shore. Yonder, to the right. Point Loma stretches its sharp and rocky promontory into the ocean, purple in the sun, bearing a light -house on its highest elevation. From this signal, bending in a perfect crescent, with a silver rim, the shore sweeps around twenty -five miles to another promontory run- ning down beyond Tia Juana to the Point of Rocks, in Mexican territory. Directly in front — they say eighteen miles away, I think five sometimes, and sometimes a hundred — lie the islands of Coronado, named, I suppose, from the old Spanish adventurer Yasques de Coronado, huge bulks of beautiful red sandstone, iminhabited and barren, becalmed there in the changing blue of sky and sea, hke enormous mastless galleons, like degraded icebergs, hke Capri and Ischia. They say that they are stationary. I only know that when I walk along the shore towards Point Loma they seem to follow, until they he oppo- site the harbor entrance, which is close by the prom- ontory; and that when I return, they recede and go away towards Mexico, to which they belong. Some- times, as seen fi'om the beach, owing to the differ- ence in the humidity of the strata of air over the ocean, they seem smaller at the bottom than at the tox3. Occasionally they come quite near, as do the sea -lions and the gulls, and again they almost fade out of the horizon in a violet light. This morning IN THE GARDEN AT SANTA BAKBAUA MISSION. EAELY VICISSITUDES, PRODUCTIONS, ETC. 33 they stand away, and the fleet of white-sailed fishing- boats from the Portnguese hamlet of La Playa, \^^tll- in the harbor entrance, which is dancing off Point Loma, wdll have a long sail if they pursue the barra- cuda to those shadowy rocks. We crossed the bay the other day, and drove up a wild road to the height of the promontory, and along its narrow ridge to the hght- house. This site commands one of the most remarkable views in the accessible civilized world, one of the three or four really great prospects which the traveller can recall, astonishing in its immensity, interesting in its pecul- iar details. The general features are the great ocean, blue, flecked with sparkhng, breaking wavelets, and the wide, curving coast -line, rising into mesas, foot- hills, ranges on ranges of mountains, the faintly seen snow -peaks of San Bernardino and San Jacinto to the Cuyamaca and the flat top of Table Mountain in Mexico. Directly under us on one side are the fields of kelp, where the whales come to feed in winter; and on the other is a point of sand on Coronado Beach, where a flock of pelicans have assembled after their day's fishing, in which occupation they are the rivals of the Portuguese. The perfect crescent of the ocean beach is seen, the singular formation of North and South Coronado Beach, the entrance to the harbor along Point Loma, and the spacious inner bay, on which lie San Diego and National City, ^\dth lowlands and heights outside sprinkled with houses, gardens, orchards, and vineyards. The near hills about this harbor are varied in form and poetic in color, one of them, the conical San Miguel, con- stantly recalling Vesuvius. Indeed, the near view, in 34 OUB ITALY. color, vegetation, and forms of hills and extent of arable land, suggests that of Naples, though on anal- ysis it does not resemble it. If San Diego had half a million of people it would be more like it ; but the Naples view is limited, while this stretches away to the great mountains that overlook the Colorado Des- ert. It is certainly one of the loveliest prospects in the world, and worth long travel to see. Standing upon this point of view, I am reminded again of the striking contrasts and contiguous differ- ent climates on the coast. In the north, of course not visible from here, is Mount Whitney, on the borders of Inyo Comity and of the State of Nevada, 15,086 feet above the sea, the highest peak in the United States, excluding Alaska. South of it is Grayback, in the San Bernardino range, 11,000 feet in altitude, the highest point above its base in the United States. While south of that is the depression in the Col- orado Desert in San Diego County, about three hun- dred feet below the level of the Pacific Ocean, the lowest land in the United States. These three ex- ceptional points can be said to be almost in sight of each other. I have insisted so much upon the Mediterranean character of this region that it is necessary to em- phasize the contrasts also. Reserving details and comments on different locahties as to the commercial value of products and climatic conditions, I will make some general observations. I am convinced that the fig can not only be grown here in sufficient quantity to supply our markets, but of the best quality. The same may be said of the English walnut. This clean and handsome tree thrives wonderfully in large areas, EAKLY VICISSITUDES, PRODUCTIONS, ETC. 37 and has no enemies. The olive culture is in its in- fancy, but I have never tasted better oil than that produced at Santa Barbara and on San Diego Bay. Specimens of the pickled olive are dehcious, and when the best varieties are generally grown, and the best method of curing is adopted, it will be in great de- mand, not as a mere relish, but as food. The raisin is produced in all the valleys of Southern California, and in great quantities in the hot valley of San Joa- quin, beyond the Sierra Madre range. The best Mal- aga raisins, which have the reputation of being the best in the world, may never come to our market, but I have never eaten a better raisin for size, flavor, and thinness of skin than those raised in the El Cajon Valley, which is watered l)y the great flume which taps a reservoir in the Cuyamaca Mountains, and sup- phes San Diego. But the quahty of the raisin in Cal- ifornia will he improved by exi3erience in cultivation and handling. The contrast with the Mediterranean region — I re- fer to the western basin — is in climate. There is hardly any point along the French and Italian coast that is not subject to great and sudden changes, caused by the north wind, which has many names, or in the extreme southern peninsula and islands by the sirocco. There are few points that are not reached by malaria, and in many resorts — and some of them most sunny and agreeable to the invalid — the deadli- est fevers always lie in wait. There is great contrast between summer and winter, and exceeding variability in the same month. This variability is the parent of many diseases of the lungs, the bowels, and the hver. It is demonstrated now by long - continued observa- 431738 38 OUR ITALY. tions that dampness and cold are not so inimical to health as variability. The Southern California climate is an anomaly. It has been the subject of a good deal of wonder and a good deal of boasting, but it is worthy of more scien- tific study than it has yet received. Its distinguishing feature I take to be its equability. The temperature the year through is lower than I had supposed, and the contrast is not great between the summer and the winter months. The same clothing is appropriate, speaking generally, for the whole year. In all sea- sons, including the rainy days of the winter months, sunshine is the rule. The variation of temperature between day and night is considerable, but if the new- comer exercises a httle care, he will not be unpleas- antly affected by it. There are coast fogs, but these are not chilling and raw. Why it is that with the hydi'ometer showing a considerable humidity in the air the general effect of the climate is that of dryness, scientists must explain. The constant exchange of desert airs with the ocean air may account for the anomaly, and the actual dryness of the soil, even on the coast, is put forward as another explanation. Those who come from heated rooms on the Atlantic may find the winters cooler than they expect, and those used to the heated terms of the Mississippi Val- ley and the East will be surprised at the cool and sa- lubrious summers. A land without high winds or thunder - storms may fairly he said to have a unique chmate. I suppose it is the equability and not conditions of dampness or dryness that renders this region so re- markably exempt from epidemics and endemic dis- EAELY VICISSITUDES, PRODUCTIONS, ETC. 39 eases. The diseases of children prevalent elsewhere are unknown here ; they cut their teeth without risk, and cholera infantum never \isits them. Diseases of the bowels are practically unknown. There is no malaria, whatever that may l)e, and consequently an I.IVE-OAK NEAR LOS ANUKLES. absence of those various fevers and other disorders which are attributed to malarial conditions. Renal diseases are also wanting; disorders of the hver and kidneys, and Bright's disease, gout, and rheumatism, are not native. The climate in its effect is stimu- lating, but at the same time soothing to the nerves, so that if "nervous prostration" is wanted, it must 4:0 OUR ITALY. be brought here, and cannot be rehed on to continue long. These facts are derived from medical practice with the native Indian and Mexican population. Dr. Remondino, to whom I have before referred, has made the subject a study for eighteen years, and later I shall offer some of the results of his observations upon longevity. It is beyond my province to vent- ure any suggestion upon the effect of the chmate upon deep-seated diseases, especially of the respira- tory organs, of invalids who come here for health. I only know that we meet daily and constantly so many persons in fau' health who say that it is im- possible for them to live elsewhere that the impres- sion is produced that a considerable proportion of the immigrant population was invalid. . There are, however, two suggestions that should be made. Care is needed in acchmation to a chmate that differs from any previous experience ; and the locahty that will suit any invahd can only be determined by per- sonal experience. If the coast does not suit him, he may be benefited in a protected valley, or he may be improved on the foot-hills, or on an elevated mesa, or on a high mountain elevation. One thing may be regarded as settled. Whatever the sensibihty or the peculiarity of invahdism, the equable climate is exceedingly favorable to the smooth working of the great organic functions of respiration, digestion, and circulation. It is a pity to give this chapter a medical tone. One need not be an invahd to come here and appre- ciate the graciousness of the air; the color of the landscape, which is wanting in our Northern clime; the constant procession of flowers the year through; EAELY VICISSITUDES, PEODUCTIONS, ETC. 41 the purple hills stretchmg into the sea ; the hundreds of hamlets, with picturesque homes overgrown with roses and geranium and hehotrope, in the midst of orange orchards and of palms and magnolias, in sight of the snow -peaks of the giant mountain ranges which shut in tliis land of marvellous beauty. CHAPTER IV. THE WINTEK OF OUK CONTENT. California is the land of the Pme and the Palnic The tree of the Sierras, native, vigorous, gigantic, and the tree of the Desert, exotic, supple, poetic, both flourish within the nine degrees of latitude. These two, the widely separated lovers of Heine's song, sym- bohze the capacities of the State, and although the sugar - pine is indigenous, and the date - palm, which will never be more than an ornament in this hos- pitable soil, was planted by the Franciscan Fathers, who estabhshed a chain of missions from San Diego to Monterey over a century ago, they should both be the distinction of one commonwealth, which, in its seven hundred miles of indented sea-coast, can boast the climates of all countries and the products of all zones. If this State of mountains and valleys were divided by an east and west line, following the general course of the Sierra Madre range, and cutting off the eight lower counties, I suppose there would be conceit enough in either section to maintain that it only is the Paradise of the earth, but both are necessary to make the unique and contradictory California which fascinates and bewilders the traveller. He is told that the inhabitants of San Francisco go away from the draught of the Grolden Gate in the summer to get THE WINTER OF OUR CONTENT. 43 warm, and yet the earliest luscious cherries and apri- cots which he finds in the far south market of San Diego come from the Northern Santa Clara Yalley. The truth would seem to be that in an hour's ride in any part of the State one can change his chmate to- tally at any time of the year, and this not merely by changing Ms elevation, but by getting in or out of the range of the sea or the desert currents of air which follow the valleys. To recommend to any one a winter climate is far fi'om the writer's thought. No two persons agree on what is desirable for a winter residence, and the inch- nation of the same person varies with his state of health. I can only attempt to give some idea of what is called the winter months in Southern Cahfornia, to which my observations mainly apply. The individual who comes here under the mistaken notion that ch- mate ever does anything more than give nature a bet- ter chance, may speedily or more tardily need the ser- vice of an undertaker ; and the invahd whose powers are responsive to kindly influences may live so long, being unable to get away, that life will be a burden to him. The person in ordinary health will find very little that is hostile to the orderly organic processes. In order to appreciate the winter climate of Southern California one should stay here the year through, and select the days that suit his idea of winter from any of the months. From the fact that the greatest hu- midity is in the summer and the least, in the winter months, he may wear an overcoat in July in a tem- perature, according to the thermometer, which in Jan- uary would render the . overcoat unnecessary. It is dampness that causes both cold and heat to be most 44 OUE ITALY. felt. The lowest temperatures, in Southern California generally, are caused only by the extreme dryness of the air ; in the long nights of December and Janviary there is a more rapid and longer continued radiation of heat. It must be a dry and clear night that will send the temperature down to thirty -four degrees* But the effect of the sun upon this air is instanta- neous, and the cold morning is followed at once by a warm forenoon; the difference between the average heat of July and the average cold of January, meas- ured by the thermometer, is not great in the valleys, foot-hills, and on the coast. Five points give this result of average for January and July respective- ly: Santa Barbara, 52°, 66°; San Bernardino, 51°, 70°; Pomona, 52°, 68° ; Los Angeles, 52°, 67° ; San Diego, 53°, 66°. The day in the winter months is warmer in the interior and the nights are cooler than on the coast, as shown by the following figures for January : 7 A.M., Los Angeles, 46.5°; San Diego, 47.5°; 3 p.m., Los Angeles, 65.2° ; San Diego, 60.9°. In the summer the difference is greater. In June I saw the ther- mometer reach 103° in Los Angeles when it was only 79° in San Diego. But I have seen the weather unen- durable in New York with a temperature of 85°, while this dry heat of 103° was not oppressive. The extraor- dinary equanimity of the coast climate (certainly the driest marine climate in my experience) will be evi- dent from the average mean for each month, from records of sixteen years, ending ni 1877, taken at San Diego, giving each month in order, beginning with January : 53.5°, 54.7°, 56.0°, 58.2°, 60.2°, 64.6°^ 67.1°, 69.0°, 66.7°, 62.9°, 58.1°, 56.0°. In the year 1877 the mean temperature at 3 p.m. at San Diego was as fol- THE WINTER OF OUR CONTENT. 45 lows, beginning mtb January : 60.9°, 57.7°, 62.4°, 63.3°, 66.3°, 68.5°, 69.6°, 69.6°, 69.5°, 69.6°, 64.4°, 60.5°. For the four months of July, August, September, and October there was hardly a shade of difference at 3 P.M. The striking fact in all the records I have seen is that the difference of temperature in the day- time between summer and winter is very small, the great difference being from midnight to just before sunrise, and this latter difference is greater inland than on the coast. There are, of course, frost and ice in the mountains, but the frost that comes oc- casionally in the low inland valleys is of very brief duration in the morning hour, and rarely continues long enough to have a serious effect upon vegetation. In considering the matter of temperature, the rule for vegetation and for invalids ^Yill not be the same. A spot in which dehcate flowers in Southern Cah- fornia bloom the year round may be too cool for many invalids. It must not be forgotten that the general temperature here is lower than that to which most Eastern people are accustomed. They are used to hving all winter in overheated houses, and to pro- tracted heated terms rendered worse by humidity in the summer. The dry, low temperature of the Cali- fornia winter, notwithstanding its perpetual sunshine, may seem, therefore, wanting to them in direct warmth. It may take a year or two to acclimate them to this more equable and more refreshing tem- perature. Neither on the coast nor in the foot-hills will the invalid find the chmate of the Riviera or of Tangier — not the tramontane wind of the former, nor the absolutely genial but somewhat enervating climate of 46 OUB ITALY. the latter. But it must be borne in mind that in this, onr Mediterranean, the seeker for health or pleasure can find almost any climate (except the very cold or the very hot), down to the minutest subdivi- sion. He may try the dry marine climate of the coast, or the temperature of the fruit lands and gar- dens from San Bernardino to Los Angeles, or he may chmb to any altitude that suits him in the Sierra Madre or the San Jacinto ranges. The difference may be all -important to him between a valley and a mesa which is not a hundred feet higher; nay, be- tween a valley and the slope of a foot-hill, with a shifting of not more than fifty feet elevation, the change may be as marked for him as it is for the most sensitive young fruit-tree. It is undeniable, not- withstanding these encouraging " averages," that cold snaps, though rare, do come occasionally, just as in summer there will occur one or two or three con- tinued days of intense heat. And in the summer in some localities — it happened in June, 1890, in the Santiago hills in Orange County — the desert sirocco, blowing over the Colorado furnace, makes life just about unendurable for days at a time. Yet with this dry heat sunstroke is never experienced, and the dis- eases of the bowels usually accompanying hot weather elsewhere are unknown. The experienced traveller who encounters unpleasant weather, heat that he does not expect, cold that he did not provide for, or dust that deprives him of his last atom of good -hu- mor, and is told that it is " exceptional," knows ex- actly what that word means. He is familiar with the " exceptional " the world over, and he feels a sort of compassion for the inhabitants who have not yet THE WINTER OF OUR CONTENT. 47 learned the adage, " Good wine needs no bush." Even those who have bought more land than they can pay for can afford to tell the truth. The rainy season in Southern California, which may open with a shower or two in October, but does not set in till late in November, or till December, and is over in April, is not at all a period of cloudy weather or continuous rainfall. On the contrary, blight warm days and brilliant sunshine are the rule. The rain is most hkely to fall in the night. There may be a day of rain, or several days that are over- cast with distributed rain, but the showers are soon over, and the sky clears. Yet winters vary greatly in this respect, the rainfall being much greater in some than in others. In 1890 there was rain beyond the average, and even on the equable beach of Coro- nada there were some wrecks of weather that fi'om the California point of view were very unpleasant. It was unpleasant by local comparison, but it was not damp and chilly, hke a protracted period of fall- ing weather on the Atlantic. The rain comes with a southerly mnd, caused by a disturbance far north, and w^th the resumption of the prevaihng westerly winds it suddenly ceases, the air clears, and neither before nor after it is the atmosphere "steamy" or enervating. The average annual rainfall of the Pacific coast dimin- ishes by regular gradation from point to point all the way from Puget Sound to the Mexican boundary. At Neali Bay it is 111 inches, and it steadily lessens down to Santa Cruz, 25.24 ; Monterey, 11.42 ; Point Concep- tion, 12.21 ; San Diego, 11.01. There is fog on the coast in every month, but this diminishes, like the rainfall, fi'oin north to south. I have encountered it 48 OUR ITALY. in both February and June. In the south it is apt to be most persistent in April and May, when for three or four days together there will be a fine mist, which any one but a Scotchman would call rain. Usually, however, the fog -bank will roll in during the night, and disappear by ten o'clock in the morning. There is no wet season properly so called, and consequently few days in the winter months when it is not agree- able to be out-of-doors, perhaps no day when one may not walk or drive during some part of it. Yet as to pre- cipitation or temperature it is impossible to strike any general average for Southern California. In 1883-84 San Diego had 25.77 inches of rain, and Los Angeles- (fifteen miles inland) had 38.22. The annual average at Los Angeles is 17.64; but in 1876-77 the total at San Diego was only 3.75, and at Los Angeles only 5.28. Yet elevation and distance from the coast do not always determine the rainfall. The yearly mean rainfall at Juhan, in the San Jacinto range, at an ele- vation of 4500 feet, is 37.74; observations at Riverside, 1050 feet above the sea, give an average of 9.37. It is probably impossible to give an Eastern man a just idea of the winter of Southern California. Ac- customed to extremes, he may expect too much. He wants a violent change. If he quits the snow, the slush, the leaden skies, the alternate sleet and cold rain of New England, he woidd hke the tropical heat, the languor, the color of Martinique. He will not find them here. He comes instead into a strictly temper- ate region ; and even when he arrives, his eyes de- ceive him. He sees the orange ripening in its dark foliage, the long hues of the eucalyptus, the feathery pepper - tree, the magnolia, the English walnut, the THE WINTER OF OUR CONTENT. 49 black live-oak, the fan -palm, in all the \dgor of June; everywhere beds of flowers of every line and of every country blazing* in the bright sunlight — the hehotrope, the geranium, the rare hot - house roses overrunning the hedges of cj^ress, and the scarlet passion -vine chmbing to the roof -tree of the cottages ; in the vine- yard or the orchard the horticulturist is follomng the cultivator in his shirt-sleeves ; he hears running water, the song of birds, the scent of flowers is in the air, and he cannot understand why he needs winter clothing, why he is always seeking the sun, why he wants a fire at night. It is a fraud, he says, all this Aisil)le display of summer, and of an almost tropical summer at that ; it is really a cold country. It is incongruous that he should be looking at a date-palm in his overcoat, and he is puzzled that a thermometrical heat that should enervate him elsewhere, stimulates him here. The green, brilhant, vigorous vegetation, the perpetual sun- shine, deceive him; he is careless about the difference of shade and sun, he gets into a draught, and takes cold. Accustomed to extremes of temperature and ar- tificial heat, I think for most 2:)eople the first winter here is a disappointment. I was told by a physician who had eighteen years' experience of the chmate thart in his first winter he thought he had never seen a people so insensitive to cold as the San Diegans, who seemed not to require warmth. And all this time the trees are growing like asparagus, the most dehcate flowers are in perpetual bloom, the annual crops are most lusty. I fancy that the soil is always warm. The temperature is truly moderate. The records for a number of years show that the mid-day temperature of clear days in winter is from 60° to 70° on the coast, 4 50 OUR ITALY. from 65° to 80° in the interior, while that of rainy days is about 60° by the sea and inland. Mr. Van Dyke says that the lowest mid-day temperature recorded at the United States signal station at San Diego during eight years is 51°. This occurred but once. In those eight years there were but twenty-one days when the mid-day temperature was not above 55°. In all that time there were but six days when the mercury fell below 36° at any time in the night ; and but two when it fell to 32°, the lowest point ever reached there. On one of these two last-named days it went to 51° at noon, and on the other to 56°. This was the great " cold snap " of December, 1879. It goes without saying that this sort of climate would suit any one in ordinary health, inviting and stimulating to constant out-of-door exercise, and that it would be equally favorable to that general break- down of the system which has the name of nervous prostration. The effect upon diseases of the respira- tory organs can only be determined by individual ex- perience. The government has lately been sending soldiers who have consumption from various stations in the United States to San Diego for treatment. This experiment will furnish interesting data. With- in a period covering a little over two years. Dr. Hun- tington, the post siu'geon, has had fifteen cases sent to him. Three of these patients had tubercular con- sumption; twelve had consumption induced by at- tacks of pneumonia. One of the tubercular patients died within a month after his arrival; the second lived eight months ; the third was discharged cured, left the army, and contracted malaria elsewliere, of which he died. The remaining twelve were discharged practi- THE WINTER OF OUR CONTENT. 51 cally cured of consumption, but two of tliem subse- quently died. It is exceedingly common to meet per- sons of all ages and both sexes in Southern California who came invalided by disease of the lungs or throat, who have every promise of fair health here, but w^ho dare not leave this chmate. The testimony is con- vincing of the good effect of the chmate upon all chil- dren, upon w^omen generally, and of its rejuvenating effect upon men and women of advanced years. CHAPTER V. HEALTH AND LONGEVITY. In regard to the effect of climate upon liealtli and longevity, Dr. Remondino quotes old Hufeland that "uniformity in the state of the atmosphere, particu- larly in regard to heat, cold, gravity, and lightness, contributes in a very considerable degree to the du- ration of life. Countries, therefore, where great and sudden varieties in the barometer and the thermome- ter are usual cannot be favorable to longevity. Such countries may be healthy, and many men may become old in them, but they will not attain to a great age, for all rapid variations are so many internal mutations, and these occasion an astonishing consumption both of the forces and the organs»" Hufeland thought a marine climate most favorable to longevity. He de- scribes, and perhaps we may say prophesied, a region he had never known, where the conditions and combi- nations were most favorable to old age, which is epito- mized by Dr. Eemondino: "where the latitude gives warmth and the sea or ocean tempering winds, where the soil is warm and dry and the sun is also bright and warm, where uninterrupted bright clear weather and a moderate temperature are the rule, where ex- tremes neither of heat nor cold are to be found, where nothing may interfere with the exercise of the aged, and where the actual re-sults and cases of longevity fe/i^^'Sik^ '* >4 itf: ■^'^Jmk HEALTH AND LONGEVITY. 55 will bear testimony as to the efficacy of all its climatic conditions ))eing favorable to a loi^g and comfortable existence." In an nnpublislied paper Dr. Remondino comments on the extraordinary endurance of animals and men in the California climate, and cites many cases of uncom- mon longevity in natives. In reading the accounts of early days in California I am struck with the endur- ance of hardship, exposure, and wounds by the natives and the adventurers, the rancheros, horsemen, herds- men, the descendants of soldiers and the Indians, their insensibility to fatigue, and their agility and strength. This is ascribed to the climate; and what is true of man is true of the native horse. His only rival in strength, endurance, speed, and intelligence is the Ara- bian. It was long supposed that this was racial, and that but for the smallness of the size of the native horse, crossing with it would improve the breed of the Eastern and Kentucky racers. But there was reluc- tance to cross the finely jjroportioned Eastern horse with his diminutive Western brother. The importa- tion and breeding of thoroughl)reds on this coast has led to the discovery that the desirable qualities of the California horse were not racial but climatic. The Eastern horse has been found to improve in size, com- pactness of muscle, in strength of limb, in wind, with a marked increase in j)ower of endurance. The trav- eller here notices the fine horses and their excellent condition, and the powder and endurance of those that have considerable age. The records made on Eastern race- courses by horses from California breeding farms have already attracted attention. It is also remarked that the Eastern liorse is usually improved greatly by 56 OUR ITALY. a sojourn of a season or two on this coast, and the plan of bringmg Eastern race-horses here for the win- ter is ah'eady adopted. Man, it is asserted by our authority, is as much benefited as the horse by a change to this chmate. The new-comer may have certain unpleasant sensa- tions in coming here from different altitudes and con- ditions, but he will soon be conscious of better being, of increased power in all the functions of life, more natural and recuperative sleep, and an accession of vitality and endurance. Dr. Remondino also testifies that it occasionally happens in this rejuvenation that families which have seemed to have reached their limit at the East are increased after residence here. The early inhabitants of Southern California, ac- cording to the statement of Mr. H. H. Bancroft and other reports, were found to be living in Spartan con- ditions as to temperance and training, and in a highly moral condition, in consequence of which they had un- common physical endurance and contempt for luxury. This training in abstinence and hardship, with temper- ance in diet, coml)ined with the climate to produce the astonishing longevity to be found here. Contrary to the customs of most other tribes of Indians, their aged were the care of the community. Dr. W. A. Winder, of San Diego, is quoted as saying that in a visit to El Cajon Valley some thirty years ago he was taken to a house in which the aged persons were cared for. There were half a dozen who had reached an extreme age. Some were unable to move, their bony frame be- ing seemingly anchylosed. They were old, wrinkled, and blear-eyed; their skin was hanging in leathery folds about their withered limbs; some had hair as HEALTH AND LONGEVITY. 59 white as snow, and had seen some seven -score of years; others, still able to crawl, but so aged as to be unable to stand, went slowly about on their hands and knees, their limbs being attenuated and withered. The organs of special sense had in many nearly lost all ac- tivity some generations back. Some had lost the use of their limbs for more than a decade or a generation; but the organs of life and the "great sympathetic" still kept up their automatic functions, not recognizing the fact, and surprisingly indifferent to it, that the rest of the body had ceased to ]3e of any use a generation or more in the past. And it is remarked that "these thoracic and abdominal organs and their physiological action being kept ahve and active, as it w^ere, against time, and the silent and unconscious functional activ- ity of the great sympathetic and its ganglia, show a tenacity of the animal tissues to hold on to life that is phenomenal." I have no space to enter upon the nature of the testimony upon which the age of certain Indians here- after referred to is based. It is such as to satisfy Dr. Remondino, Dr. Edward Palmer, long connected with the Agricultural Department of the Smithsonian In- stitution, and Father A. D. Ubach, Avho has religious charge of the Indians in this region. These Indians w^ere not migratory; they lived within certain limits, and were known to each other. The missions estab- lished by the Franciscan friars w^ere built with the as- sistance of the Indians. The friars have handed down by word of mouth many details in regard to their early missions; others are found in the mission records, such as carefully kept records of family events — l)irths, marriages, and deaths. And there is the testimony of 60 OUR ITALY. the Indians regarding each other. Father Ubach has known a number who were employed at the building of the mission of San Diego (1769-71), a century be- fore he took charge of this mission. These men had been engaged in carrying timber from the mountains or in making brick, and many of them were living within the last twenty years. There are persons still living at the Indian village of Capitan Grande whose ages he estimates at over one hundred and thirty years. Since the advent of civihzation the abstemious habits and Spartan virtues of these Indians have been impaired, and their care for the aged has relaxed. Dr. Palmer has a photograph (which I have seen) of a squaw whom he estimates to be 126 years old. When he ^dsited her he saw her put six watermelons in a blanket, tie it up, and carry it on her back for two miles. He is familiar with Indian customs and his- tory, and a careful cross-examination con^dnced Mm that her information of old customs was not obtained by tradition. She was conversant with tribal habits she had seen practised, such as the cremation of the dead, which the mission fathers had compelled the Indians to relinquish. She had seen the Indians pun- ished by the fathers with floggings for persisting in the practice of cremation. At the mission of San Tomas, in Lower California, is still living an Indian (a photograph of whom Dr. Remondino shows), bent and wrinkled, whose age is computed at 110 years. Although blind and naked, he is still active, and daily goes down the beach and along the beds of the creeks in search of drift-wood, making it his daily task to gather and carry to camp a fagot of wood. HEALTH AND LONGEVITY. 61 Another instance I give in Dr. Remondino's words : "Philip Crossthwaite, who has hved here since 184IJ, has an old man on his ranch who monnts his horse and rides about daily, who was a grown man breaking- horses for the mission fathers when Don Antonio Ser- UJ.I) ADOIJK llUlfSK, I'OMU.NA. rano was an infant. Don Antonio I know quite well, having attended him through a serious illness some sixteen years ago. Although now at the advanced age of ninety- three, he is as erect as a pine, and he rides 62 OUR ITALY. his horse with his usual vigor and grace. He is thin and spare and very tall, and those who knew him fifty years or more remember him as the most skilful horseman in the neighborhood of San Diego. And yet, as fabulous as it may seem, the man who danced this Don Antonio on his knee when he was an infant is not only still alive, but is active enough to mount his horse and canter about the country. Some years ago I attended an elderly gentleman, since dead, who knew this man as a full-grown man when he and Don Serrano were play-children together. From a conver- sation with Father Ubach I learned that the man's age is perfectly authenticated to be beyond one hun- dred and eighteen years." In the many instances given of extreme old age in this region the habits of these Indians have been those of strict temperance and abstemiousness, and their long life in an equable climate is due to extreme sim- plicity of diet. In many cases of extreme age the diet has consisted simply of acorns, flour, and water. It is asserted that the climate itself induces temperance in drink and abstemiousness in diet. In his estimate of the climate as a factor of longevity, Dr. Remondino says that it is only necessary to look at the causes of death, and the ages most subject to attack, to under- stand that the less of these causes that are present the greater are the chances of man to reach great age. "Add to these reflections that you run no gantlet of diseases to undermine or deteriorate the organism ; that in this climate childhood finds an escape from those diseases which are the terror of mothers, and against which physicians are helpless, as we have here none of those affections of the first three years of fife HEALTH AND LONGEVITY. 63 FAN-PALM. FEKXANOO ST. hOU ANCiELES SO prevalent during the snuiiner months in the East and the rest of the United States. Then, again, the chance of gastric or intestinal disease is almost incred-* ibly small. This immunity extends through every age of life. Hepatic and kindred diseases are unknown ; of lung affections there is no land that can Ijoast of like exemption. Be it the equahiUty <^f the tempera- 64 OUE ITALY. tiire or the aseptic condition of tlie atmosphere, the free sweep of winds or the absence of chsease germs, or what else it may he ascribed to, one thing is cer- tain, that there is no pneumonia, bronchitis, or pleu- risy lying in wait for either the infant or the aged." The importance of this subject must excuse the space I have given to it. It is evident from this tes- timony that here are chmatic conditions novel and worthy of the most patient scientific investigation. Their effect upon hereditary tendencies and upon per- sons coming here with hereditary diseases will be studied. Three years ago there w^as in some localities a visitation of small-pox imported from Mexico. At that time there were cases of pneumonia. Whether these w^ere incident to carelessness in vaccination, or were caused by local unsanitary conditions, I do not know. It is not to be expected that unsanitary con- ditions w^ill not produce disease here as elsewhere. It cannot be too strongly insisted that this is a chmate that the new-comer must get used to, and that he cannot safely neglect the ordinary precautions. The difference between shade and sun is strikingly marked, and he must not be deceived into imprudence by the prevailing sunshine or the general equabihty. CHAPTER YI. IS EESIDENCE HEEE AGEEEABLE ? Aetee all these averages and statistics, and not •considering now the chances of the speculator, the farmer, the fruit - raiser, or the invalid, is Southern California a particularly agreeable winter residence'? The question deserves a candid answer, for it is of the last importance to the people of the United States to know the truth — to know whether they have accessible by rail a region free from winter rigor -and vicissitudes, and yet with few of the disadvan- tages of most winter resorts. One would have more pleasure in answering the question if he were not ir- ritated by the perpetual note of brag and exaggera- tion in every locality that each is the paradise of the ■earth, and absolutely free from any physical discom- fort. I hope that this note of exaggeration is not the effect of the climate, for if it is, the region will never be socially agreeable. There are no sudden changes of season here. Spring comes gradually day by day, a perce|)tible hourly waking to life and color ; and this glides into a summer which never ceases, but only becomes tired and fades into the repose of a short autumn, when the sere and brown and red and yellow hills and the purple mountains are waiting for the rain clouds. This is according to the process of nature ; but 66 OUR ITALY. wherever irrigation brings moisture to the fertile soil, the green and bloom are perpetual the year round, only the green is powdered with dust, and the culti- vated flowers have their periods of exhaustion. I should think it well worth while to watch the procession of nature here from late November or December to April. It is a land of delicate and brill- iant wild flowers, of blooming shrubs, strange in form and wonderful in color. Before the annual rains the land hes in a sort of swoon in a golden haze; the slopes and plains are bare, the hills yellow with ripe wild -oats or ashy gray with sage, the sea-breeze is weak, the air grows drier, the sun hot, the shade cool. Then one day light clouds stream up from the south-west, and there is a gentle rain. When the sun comes out again its rays are milder, the land is re- freshed and brightened, and almost immediately a greenish tinge appears on plain and hill -side. At intervals the rain continues, daily the landscape is greener in infinite variety of shades, which seem to sweep over the hills in waves of color. Upon this carpet of green by February nature begins to weave an embroidery of wild flowers, white, lavender, golden, pink, indigo, scarlet, changing day by day and every day more brilliant, and spreading from patches into great fields until dale and hill and table- land are overspread with a refinement and glory of color that would be the despair of the carpet-weavers of Daghestan. This, with the scent of orange groves and tea- roses, with cool nights, snow in sight on the high mountains, an occasional day of rain, days of bright sunshine, when an overcoat is needed in driving, IS RESIDENCE HERE AGREEABLE? 67 must suffice the sojourner for winter. He will be humiliated that he is more sensitive to cold than the heliotrope or the violet, hut he must bear it. If he is looking for malaria, he must go to some other winter resort. If he wants a "norther" continuing for days, he must move on. If he is accustomed to various insect pests, he will miss them here. If there comes a day warmer than usual, it will not be damp or soggy. So far as nature is concerned there is very little to grumble at, and one resource of the traveller is therefore taken away. But is it interesting'? What is there to do? It must be confessed that there is a sort of monotony in the scenery as there is in the climate. There is, to be sure, great variety in a way between coast and mountain, as, for instance, between Santa Barbara and Pasadena, and if the tourist will make a business of exploring the valleys and uplands and canons little visited, he will not complain of monotony; but the artist and the photographer find the same elements repeated in little varying combinations. There is un- deniable repetition in the succession of flower-gar- dens, fruit orchards, alleys of palms and peppers, vineyards, and the cultivation about the villas is re- peated in all directions. The Americans have not the art of making houses or a land picturesque. The traveller is enthusiastic about the exquisite drives through these groves of fruit, with the ashy or the snow -covered hills for background and contrast, and he exclaims at the pretty cottages, vine and rose clad, in their semi-tropical setting, bul^ if by chance he comes upon an old adobe or a Mexican ranch house in the country, he has emotions of a different sort. 68 OUE ITALY. There is little left of the old Spanish occupation, but the remains of it make the romance of the country, and appeal to our sense of fitness and beauty. It is to be hoped that all such historical associations will be preserved, for they give to the traveller that which SCAKLET PASSIOX-VINK. our country generally lacks, and which is so largely the attraction of Italy and Spain. Instead of adapt- ing and modifying the houses and homes that the climate suggests, the new American comers have brought here from the East the smartness and jjretti- IS EESIDENCE HERE AGEEEABLE ? 69 ness of our modern nondescript arcliitectiu*e. The low honse, with recesses and galleries, built round an inner court, or jxifio, which, however small, would fill the whole interior with sunshine and the scent of flowers, is the sort of dwelhng that would suit the climate and the habit of life here. But the present occupiers have taken no hints from the natives. In village and country they have done all they can, in spite of the maguey and the cactus and the palm and the umbrella-tree and the live-oak and the riot- ous flowers and the thousand novel forms of vege- tation, to give everything a prosaic look. But why shoidd the tourist find fault with this? The Ameri- can likes it, and he would not like the picturesque- ness of the Spanish or the Latin races. So far as chmate and natural beauty go to make one contented in a winter resort, Southern Cahfornia has unsurpassed attractions, and both seem to me to fit very well the American temperament ; but the asso- ciations of art and history are wanting, and the tourist knows how largely his enjoyment of a vacation in Southern Italy or Sicily or Northern Africa depends upon these — upon these and upon the aspects of hu- man nature foreign to liis experience. It goes without saying that this is not Europe, either in its human interest or in a certain refinement of landscape that comes only by long cultivation and the occupancy of ages. One advantage of foreign travel to the restless American is that he carries with him no responsibility for the government or the prog- ress of the country he is in, and that he leaves busi- ness behind liim ; whereas in this new country, which is his own, the development of which is so interesting, 70 OUE ITALY. and in whicli the opportunities of fortune seem so in- viting, he is constantly tempted " to take a hand in." If, however, he is superior to this fever, and is wiUing simply to rest, to drift along with the equable days, I know of no other place where he can be more truly contented. Year by year the country becomes more agreeable for the traveller, in the first place, through the improvement in the hotels, and in the second, by better roads. In the large villages and cities there are miles of excellent drives, well sprinkled, through de- lightful avenues, in a park-like country, where the eye is enchanted with color and luxurious vegetation, and captivated by the remarkable beauty of the hills, the wildness and picturesqueness of which enhance the charming cultivation of the orchards and gardens. And no country is more agreeable for riding and driv- ing, for even at mid-day, in the direct sun rays, there is almost everywhere a refreshing breeze, and one rides or drives or walks with little sense of fatigue. The horses are uniformly excellent, either in the carriage or under the saddle. I am sure they are remarkable in speed, endurance, and ease of motion. If the vis- iting season had no other attraction, the horses would make it distinguished. A great many people like to spend months in a comfortable hotel, lounging on the piazzas, playing lawn-tennis, taking a morning ride or afternoon drive, making an occasional picnic excursion up some mount- ain canon, getting up charades, playing at private the- atricals, dancing, flirting, floating along with more or less sentiment and only the weariness that comes when there are no duties. There are plenty of places where all these things can be done, and with no sort IS EESIDENCE HERE AGREEABLE? Yl of anxiety about the weather from week to week, and with the added advantage that the women and chil- dren can take care of themselves. But for those who find such a hfe monotonous there are other resources. There is very good fishing in the clear streams in the foot-hills, hunting in the mountains for large game still worthy of the steadiest nerves, and good bird- shooting everywhere. There are mountains to climb, canons to explore, lovely valleys in the recesses of the hills to be discovered — in short, one disposed to activ- ity and not afraid of roughing it could occupy himself most agreeably and healthfully in the wild parts of San Bernardino and San Diego counties ; he may even still start a grizzly in the Sierra Madre range in Los Angeles County. Hunting and exploring in the mount- ains, riding over the mesas, which are green from the winter rains and gay with a thousand dehcate grasses and flowering plants, is manly occupation to suit the most robust and adventurous. Those who saunter in the trim gardens, or fly from one hotel parlor to the other, do not see the best of Southern Cahfornia in the winter. CHAPTEE YII. THE WINTER ON THE COAST. But the distinction of this coast, and that which will forever make it attractive at the season when the North Atlantic is forbidding, is that the ocean-side is. as equable, as delightful, in winter as in summer. Its- sea -side places are truly all -the -year -round resorts. In subsequent chapters I shall speak in detail of dif- ferent places as to climate and development and pe- culiarities of production. I will now only give a gen- eral idea of Southern California as a w^intering place. Even as far north as Monterey, in the central part of the State, the famous Hotel del Monte, with its mag- nificent park of pines and hve-oaks, and exquisite flower-gardens underneath the trees, is remarkable for its steadiness of temperature. I could see little differ- ence between the temperature of June and of Febru- ary. The difference is of course greatest at night. The maximum the year through ranges from about 65° to about 80°, and the minimum from about 35° to about 58°, though there are days when the thermom- eter goes above 90°, and nights when it falls below 30°. To those who prefer the immediate ocean air to that air as modified by such valleys as the San Gra- briel and the Santa Ana, the coast offers a variety of choice in different combinations of sea and mountain KdSK-lirsiI, SANTA BARBARA. THE WINTER ON THE COAST. 75 climate all along the southern sunny exposure from Santa Barbarba to San Diego. In Santa Barbara County the Santa Inez range of mountains runs west- ward to meet the Pacific at Point Conception. South of this noble range are a number of httle valleys open- ing to the sea, and in one of these, with a harbor and sloping upland and canon of its own, hes Santa Bar- bara, looking southward towards the sunny islands of Santa Rosa and Santa Cruz. Above it is the Mission Canon, at the entrance of which is the best-preserved of the old Franciscan missions. There is a superb drive eastward along the long and curving sea-beach of four miles to the canon of Monticito, which is rather a series of nooks and terraces, of lovely places and gardens, of plantations of oranges and figs, rising up to the base of the gray mountains. The long line of the Santa Inez suggests the promontory of Sor- rento, and a view from the opposite rocky point, which encloses the harbor on the w^est, by the help of cypresses which look like stone-pines, recalls many an Itahan coast scene, and in situation the Bay of Naples. The w^hole aspect is foreign, enchanting, and the semi- tropical fruits and vines and flowers, with a golden atmosphere poured over all, irresistibly take the mind to scenes of Itahan romance. There is still a little Spanish flavor left in the town, in a few old houses, in names and families historic, and in the life without hurry or apprehension. There is a delightful com- mingling here of sea and mountain air, and in a Inin- dred fertile nooks in the hills one in the most deli- cate health may be sheltered from every harsh wdnd. I think no one ever leaves Santa Barbara without a desu'e to return to it. 76 OUK ITALY. Farther down tlie coast, only eighteen miles from Los Angeles, and a sort of Coney Island resort of that thri\dng city, is Santa Monica. Its hotel stands on a high bluff in a lovely bend of the coast. It is popular in summer as well as winter, as the number of cot- tages attest, and it was chosen by the directors of the National Soldiers' Home as the site of the Home on the Pacific coast. There the veterans, in a commo- dious building, dream away their lives most content- edly, and can fancy that they hear the distant thunder of guns in the pounding of the surf. At about the same distance from Los Angeles, southward, above Point Vincent, is Redondo Beach, a new resort, which, from its natural beauty and exten- sive improvements, promises to be a delightful place of sojourn at any time of the year. The mountain- ous, embracing arms of the bay are exquisite in con- tour and color, and the beach is very fine. The hotel is perfectly comfortable — indeed, uncommonly attrac- tive — and the extensive planting of trees, palms, and shrubs, and the cultivation of flowers, will change the place in a year or two into a scene of green and floral loveliness ; in this region two years, such is the rapid growth, suffices to transform a desert into a park or garden. On the hills, at a httle distance from the beach and pier, are the buildings of the Chautauqua, which holds a local summer session here. The Chau- tauqua people, the country over, seem to have, in se- lecting sightly and agreeable sites for their temples of education and amusement, as good judgment as the old monks had in planting their monasteries and missions. If one desires a thoroughly insular chmate, he may THE WINTEE ON THE COAST. 7^ cross to the pictiu'esque island of Santa Catalina. All along the coast flowers bloom m the whiter months, and the ornamental semi - tropical plants thrive ; and there are many striking headlands and pretty bays and gentle seaward slopes which are already occupied by villages, and attract visitors who would practise economy. The hills frequently come close to the shore, forming those valleys in wliich the Californians of the pastoral period placed their ranch houses. At San Juan Capristrano the fathers had one of their most flourishing missions, the ruins of which are the most picturesque the traveller will find. It is alto- gether a genial, attractive coast, and if the tourist does not prefer an inland situation, like the Hotel Raymond (which scarcely has a rival anywhere in its lovely surroundings), he will keep on down the coast to San Diego. The transition from the well -planted counties of Los Angeles and Orange is not altogether agreeable to the eye. One misses the trees. The general aspect of the coast about San Diego is bare in comparison. This simply means that the southern county is behind the others in development. Nestled among the hills there are live - oaks and sycamores ; and of course at National City and below, in El Cajon and the valley of the Sweetwater, there are extensive plantations of oranges, lemons, olives, and vines, but the San Diego region generally lies in the sun shadeless. I have a personal theory that much vegetation is inconsistent with the best atmosphere for the human being. The air is nowhere else so agreeable to me as it is in a barren New Mexican or Arizona desert at the proper elevation. I do not know whether the San Diego cli- 80 OUR ITALY. mate would be injured if the hills were covered with forest and the valleys were all in the liighest and most luxmiant vegetation. The theory is that the interaction of the desert and ocean ^dnds will al- ways keep it as it is, whatever man may do. I can only say that, as it is, I doubt if it has its equal the year round for agreeableness and healthfulness in our Union; and it is the testimony of those whose ex- perience of the best Mediterranean climate is more extended and much longer continued than mine, that it is superior to any on that enclosed sea. About this great harbor, whose outer beach has an extent of twenty -five miles, whose inland circuit of mountains must be over fifty miles, there are great varieties of temperatm-e, of shelter and exposm-e, minute subdi- visions of chmate, whose personal fitness can only be attested by experience. There is a great difference, for instance, between the quality of the chmate at the elevation of the Florence Hotel, San Diego, and the University Heights on the mesa above the town, and that on the long Coronado Beach which protects the inner harbor from the ocean surf. The latter, practi- cally surrounded by water, has a true marine climate, but a pecuhar and dry marine chmate, as tonic in its effect as that of Capri, and, I believe, with fewer harsh days in the winter season. I wish to speak with en- tire frankness about this situation, for I am sure that what so much pleases me will suit a great number of people, who will thank me for not being reserved. Doubtless it will not suit hundreds of people as well as some other loeahties in Southern California, but I found no other place where I had the feeling of abso- lute content and willingness to stay on indefinitely. THE WINTER ON THE COAST. 81 There is a geniality about it for which the thermom- eter does not account, a charm which it is difficult to explain. Much of the agreeability is due to artificial conditions, but the climate man has not made nor marred. The Coronado Beach is about twelve miles long. A narrow sand promontory, running northward from the main-land, rises to the Heights, then broadens into a table-land, which seems to be an island, and meas- ures about a mile and a half each way; this is called South Beach, and is connected by another spit of sand with a like area called North Beach, which forms, with Point Loma, the entrance to the harbor. The North Beach, covered partly with chaparral and broad fields of barley, is alive with quail, and is a favorite cours- ing-ground for rabbits. The soil, which appears un- inviting, is with water uncommonly fertile, being a mixture of loam, disintegrated granite, and decomposed shells, and especially adapted to flowers, rare tropical trees, fruits, and flowering shrubs of all countries. The development is on the South Beach, which was in January, 1887, nothing but a waste of sand and chaparral. I doubt if the world can show a like trans- formation in so short a time. I saw it in February of that year, when all the beauty, except that of ocean, sky, and atmosphere, was still to be imagined. It is now as if the wand of the magician had touched it. In the first place, abundance of water was brought over by a submarine conduit, and later from the extraordi- nary Coronado Springs (excellent soft water for drink- ing and bathing, and with a recognized medicinal val- ue), and with these streams the beach began to bloom like a tropical garden. Tens of thousands of trees 82 OUR ITALY. have attained a remarkable growth in three years. The nursery is one of the most interesting botanical and flower gardens in the country; palms and hedges of Monterey cypress and marguerites line the avenues. There are parks and gardens of rarest flowers and shrubs, whose brilliant color produces the same excite- ment in the mind as strains of martial music. A rail- way traverses the beach for a mile from the ferry to the hotel. There are hundi-eds of cottages mth their gardens scattered over the surface ; there is a race- track, a museum, an ostrich farm, a labyrinth, good roads for driving, and a dozen other attractions for the idle or the inquisitive. The hotel stands upon the south front of the beach and near the sea, above which it is sufliciently elevated to give a fine prospect. The sound of the beating surf is perpetual there. At low tide there is a splendid driving beach miles in extent, and though the slope is abrupt, the opportunity for bathing is good, with a little care in regard to the undertow. But there is a safe natatorium on the harbor side close to the hotel. The stranger, when he first comes upon this novel hotel and this marvellous scene of natural and created beauty, is apt to exhaust his superlatives. I hesitate to attempt to describe this hotel — this airy and pictur- esque and half -bizarre wooden creation of the archi- tect. Taking it and its situation together, I know nothing else in the world with which to compare it, and I have never seen any other which so surprised at first, that so improved on a two weeks' acquaintance, and that has left in the mind an impression so entirely agreeable. It covers about four and a half acres of ground, including an inner court of about an acre, the nOTKL DEL COUONAUo THE WINTER ON THE COAST. 85 rich made soil of which is raised to the level of the main floor. The house siuTounds this, in the Spanish mode of building, with a series of galleries, so that most of the suites of rooms have a double outlook — one upon this lovely garden, the other upon the ocean or the harbor. The effect of this interior court or patio is to give gayety and an air of friendliness to the place, brilliant as it is wdth flowers and climbing vines ; and when the royal and date palms that are vigorously thriving in it attain their growth it will be magnificent. Big hotels and caravansaries are usually tiresome, unfriendly places; and if I should lay too much stress upon the vast dining-room (which has a floor area of ten thousand feet without post or pillar), or the beautiful breakfast -room, or the cu'cular ball- room (which has an area of eleven thousand feet, with its timber roof open to the lofty observatory), or the music - room, billiard - rooms for ladies, the reading- rooms and parlors, the pretty gallery overlooking the spacious office rotunda, and then say that the whole is illuminated with electric lights, and capable of l)e- ing heated to any temperature desired — I might con- vey a false unpression as to the actual comfort and home-likeness of this charming i3lace. On the sea side the broad galleries of each story are shut in by glass, which can be opened to admit or shut to exclude the fresh ocean breeze. Whatever the temperature out- side, those great galleries are always agreeable for lounging or promenading. For me, I never tire of the sea and its changing color and movement. If this great house were filled with guests, so spacious are its lounging places I should think it would never appear to be crowded; and if it were nearly empty, so ad- 86 OUK ITALY. mirably are the rooms contrived for family life it will not seem lonesome. I shall add that the management is of the sort that makes the guest feel at home and at ease. Flowers, brought in from the gardens and nurs- eries, are everywhere in profusion — on the dining- tables, in the rooms, all about the house. So abun- OSTRICH YARD, CORONADO BEACH. dantly are they produced that no amount of culling seems to make an impression upon their mass. But any description would fail to give the secret of the charm of existence here. Restlessness disappears, for one thing, but there is no languor or depression. I cannot tell why, when the thermometer is at 60° or 63°, the air seems genial and has no sense of chilhness, THE WINTEK ON THE COAST. 87 or why it is not oppressive at 80° or 85°. I am sure the place will not suit those whose highest idea of winter enjoyment is tobogganing and an ice palace, nor those who revel in the steam and languor of a tropical island ; but for a person whose desires are moderate, whose tastes are temperate, who is willing for once to be good-humored and content in equable conditions, I should commend Coronado Beach and the Hotel del Coronado, if I had not long ago learned that it is unsafe to commend to any human being a climate or a doctor. But you can take your choice. It lies there, our Mediterranean region, on a blue ocean, protected by barriers of granite from the Northern influences, an infinite variety of plain, canon, hills, valleys, sea-coast ; our New Italy without malaria, and with every sort of fruit which we desire (except the tropical), which will be grown in perfection when our knowledge equals our ambition ; and if you cannot find a winter home there or pass some contented weeks in the months of North- ern inclemency, you are weighing social advantages against those of the least objectionable climate within the Union. It is not yet proved that this equability and the daily out-door life possible there will change character, but they are likely to improve the disposi- tion and soften the asperities of common life. At any rate, there is a land where from November to April one has not to make a continual fight with the ele- ments to keep alive. It has been said that this land of the sun and of the equable climate will have the effect that other lands of a southern aspect have upon temperament and habits. It is feared that Northern -bred people, 88 OUE ITALY. wlio are guided by the necessity of making hay while the sun shines, will not make hay at all in a land where the sun always shines. It is thought that un- less people are spurred on incessantly by the exigen- cies of the changing seasons they will lose energy, and fall into an idle floating along with gracious nature. Will not one sink into a comfortable and easy pro- crastination if he has a whole year in which to per- form the labor of three months ? Will Southern Cali- fornia be an exception to those lands of equable climate and extraordinary fertility where every effort is post- poned till " to-morrow f I wish there might be something solid in this ex- pectation ; that this may be a region where the rest- less American will lose something of his hurry and petty, feverish ambition. Partially it may be so. He will take, he is aheady taking, something of the tone of the climate and of the old Spanish occupation. But the race instinct of thrift and of " getting on" will not wear out in many generations. Besides, the condition of living at all in Southern California in comfort, and with the social life indispensable to our people, de- mands labor, not exhausting and killing, but still in- cessant — demands industry. A land that will not yield satisfactorily without irrigation, and whose best paying produce requires intelligent as well as careful husbandry, will never be an idle land. Egypt, with all its dolce far niente, was never an idle land for the laborer. It may be expected, however, that no more energy will be developed or encouraged than is needed for the daily tasks, and these tasks being hghter than else- where, and capable of being postponed, that there will THE WINTER ON THE COAST. 89 be less stress and strain in the daily life. Although the climate of Southern California is not enervating, in fact is stimulating to the new-comer, it is doubtless true that the monotony of good weather, of the sight of perpetual bloom and color in orchards and gardens, will take away nervousness and produce a certain jAa- cidity, which might be taken for laziness by a North- ern observer. It may be that engagements will not be kept with desired punctuality, under the imxDression that the enjoyment of life does not depend upon exact response to the second-hand of a watch ; and it is not unpleasant to think that there is a corner of the Union where there will be a little more leisure, a little more of serene waiting on Providence, an abatement of the restless rush and haste of our usual life. The waves of population have been rolling westward for a long time, and now, breaking over the mountains, they flow over Pacific slopes and along the warm and inviting seas. Is it altogether an unpleasing thought that tlie conditions of life will be somewhat easier there, that there will be some physical repose, the race having reached the sunset of the continent, comparable to the desirable placidity of life called the sunset of old age ? This may be altogether fanciful, but I have sometimes felt, in the sunny moderation of nature there, that this land might offer for thousands at least a winter of content. CHAPTER VIII. THE GENEEAL OUTLOOK. — LAND AND PRICES. From the northern limit of California to the south- ern is about the same distance as from Portsmouth, New Hampshire, to Charleston, South Carolina. Of these two coast lines, covering nearly ten degrees of latitude, or over seven hundred miles, the Atlantic has greater extremes of climate and greater monthly varia- tions, and the Pacific greater variety of productions. The State of California is, however, so mountainous, cut by longitudinal and transverse ranges, that any reasonable person can find in it a temperature to suit him the year through. But it does not need to be explained that it would be difficult to hit upon any general characteristic that would apply to the stretch of the Atlantic coast named, as a guide to a settler looking for a home; the description of Massachusetts would be wholly misleading for South Carolina. It is almost as difficult to make any comprehensive state- ment about the long line of the California coast. It is possible, however, limiting the inquiry to the southern third of the State — an area of about fifty- eight thousand square miles, as large as Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island — to answer fairly some of the questions often- est asked about it. These relate to the price of land, its productiveness, the kind of products most profit- THE GENERAL OUTLOOK. — LAND AND PRICES. iH able, the sort of labor required, and its desirability as a place of residence for the laborer, for the farmer or horticulturist of small means, and for the man with considerable capital. Questions on these subjects can- not be answered categorically, but I hope to be able, by setting down my own observations and using trust- worthy reports, to give others the material on which to exercise their judgment. In the first place, I think it demonstrable that a person would profitably exchange 160 acres of farming land east of the one hundredth parallel for ten acres, with a water right, in Southern Cahfornia. In making this estimate I do not consider the ques- tion of health or merely the agreeability of the cli- mate, but the conditions of labor, the ease with which one could support a family, and the profits over and above a fair living. It has been customary in reckon- ing the value of land there to look merely to the profit of it beyond its support of a family, forgetting that agriculture and horticulture the world over, like al- most all other kinds of business, usually do little more than procure a good comfortable living, with inci- dental education, to those who engage in them. That the majority of the inhabitants of Southern California will become rich by the culture of the orange and the vine is an illusion; but it is not an illusion that twenty times its present population can live there in comfort, in what might be called luxury elsewhere, by the cultivation of the soil, all far removed from pov- erty and much above the condition of the majority of the inhabitants of the foreign wine and fruit-produc- ing countries. This result is assured by the extraor- dinary productiveness of the land, uninterrupted the fl9. OUR ITALY. year through, and by the amazing extension of the market in the United States for products that can be nowhere else produced with such certainty and profu- sion as in Cahfornia. That State is only just learning liow to supply a demand which is daily increasing, but it already begins to command the market in certain fruits. This command of the market in the future will depend upon itself, that is, whether it will send ti:ma YUCCA -PALM. East and North only sound wine, instead of crude, ill- cured juice of the grape, only the best and most care- fully canned apricots, nectarines, peaches, and plums, THE GENERAL OUTLOOK. — LAND AND PRICES. i»;i only the raisins and prunes perfectly prepared, only such oranges, lemons, and grapes and pears as the Californians are willing to eat themselves. California has yet much to learn about fruit-raising and fruit- curing, but it already knows that to compete with the rest of the world in our markets it must beat the rest of the world in qual- ity. It will take some time yet to remove the unfavorable opinion of California wines pro- duced in the East by the first products of the vineyards sent here. The difficulty for the settler is that he can- not "take up" ten acres with water in Califor- nia as he can 160 acres elsewhere. There is left little available Government land. There is plenty of government land not taken up and which may never be occupied, that is, inaccessible mountain and irreclaimable desert. There are also little nooks and fertile spots here and there to be discovered which may be pre-empted, and which will some day have value. But practically all the arable land, or that is likely to become so, is owned now in large tracts, under grants or by wholesale pur- chase. The circumstances of the case compelled asso- DATEl'ALM. M OUR ITALY. ciate effort. Such a desert as that now bloommcc re- gion known as Pasadena, Pomona, Riverside, and so on, could not he suhdued by individual exertion. Con- sequently land and water companies were organized. They bought large tracts of unimproved land, built dams in the mountain canons, sunk wells, drew water from the rivers, made reservoirs, laid pipes, carried ditches and conduits across the country, and then sold the land with the inseparable water right in small par- cels. Thus the region became subdivided among small holders, each independent, but all mutually dependent as to water, which is the sine qua non of existence. It is only a few years since there was a forlorn and strug- gling colony a few miles east of Los Angeles known as the Indiana settlement. It had scant water, no rail- way communication, and everything to learn about horticulture. That spot is now the famous Pasadena. What has been done in the Santa Ana and San Gabriel valleys will be done elsewhere in the State. There are places in Kern County, north of the Sierra Madre, where the land produces grain and alfalfa Avith- out irrigation, where farms can be bought at from five to ten dollars an acre — land that will undoubtedly in- crease in value with settlement and also by irrigation. The great county of San Diego is practically undevel- oped, and contains an immense area, in scattered mesas and valleys, of land which will produce apples, grain, and grass without irrigation, and which the settler can get at moderate prices. Nay, more, any one with a lit- tle ready money, who goes to Southern Cahfornia ex- pecting to establish himself and willing to work, will be welcomed and aided, and be pretty certain to find some place where he can steadily improve his condi- THE GENERAL OUTLOOK. — LAND AND PRICES. 95 tion. But tlie regions about which one hears most, which are ah'eady fruit gardens and well sprinkled with rose-clad homes, command prices per acre which seem extravagant. Land, however, like a mine, gets its value from what it will produce ; and it is to be noted that while the subsidence of the "boom" knock- ed the value out of twenty-feet city lots staked out in the wilderness, and out of insanely inflated city prop- erty, the land upon which crops are raised has steadily appreciated in value. So many conditions enter into the price of land that it is impossible to name an average price for the arable land of the southern counties, but I have heard good judges place it at $100 an acre. The lands, with water, are very much alike in their i)roducing power, but some, for climatic reasons, are better adapted to citrus fruits, others to the raisin grape, and others to deciduous fruits. The value is also affected l)y rail- way facilities, contiguity to the local commercial cen- tre, and also by the character of the settlement — that is, by its morality, public spirit, and facilities for edu- cation. Every town and settlement thinks it has special advantages as to improved irrigation, equa- Ijihty of temperature, adaptation to this or that prod- uct, attractions for invalids, temj^ered ocean breezes, protection from "northers," schools, and varied indus- tries. These things are so much matter of personal choice that each settler will do well to examine widely for himself, and not buy until he is suited. Some figures, which may be depended on, of actual sales and of annual yields, may be of service. They are of the district east of Pasadena and Pomona, but fairly represent the whole region down to Los Angeles. 96 OUR ITALY. The selling price of raisin grape land unimproved, "but with water, at Riverside is $250 to $300 per acre; at South Riverside, $150 to $200 ; in the highland district of San Bernardino, and at Redlands (which is a new settlement east of the city of San Bernardino), $200 to $250 per acre. At Banning and at Hesperia, which he north of the San Bernardino range, $125 to $150 per acre are the prices asked. Distance from the com- mercial centre accounts for the difference in price in the towns named. The crop varies with the care and skill of the cultivator, but a fair average from the \dnes at two years is two tons per acre; three years, three tons; four years, five tons; five years, seven tons. The price varies with the season, and also whether its sale is upon the vines, or after picking, drying, and sweating, or the packed product. On the vines $20 per ton is a fair average price. In exceptional cases vineyards at Riverside have produced four tons per acre in twenty months from the setting of the cut- tings, and six -year -old vines have produced thirteen and a half tons per acre. If the grower has a crop of, say, 2000 packed boxes of raisins of twenty pounds each box, it will pay him to pack his own crop and establish a "brand" for it. In 1889 three adjoining vineyards in Riverside, producing about the same average crops, were sold as follows: The first vine- yard, at $17 50 per ton on the vines, yielded $150 per acre; the second, at six cents a pound, in the sweat boxes, yielded $276 per acre ; the tliird, at $1 80 per box, packed, yielded $114 per acre. Land adapted to the deciduous fruits, such as apri- cots and peaches, is worth as much as raisin land, and some years pays better. The pear and the apple need THE GENERAL OUTLOOK. — LAND AND PRICES. 97 greater elevation, and are of better quality when grown on high ground than in the valleys. I have reason to believe that the mountain regions of San Diego Coun- ty are specially adapted to the apple. Good orange land unimproved, but with water, is worth from $300 to $500 an acre. If we add to this price the cost of budded trees, the care of them for four years, and interest at eight per cent, per annum for four years, the cost of a good grove will be about $1000 an acre. It must be understood that the profit of an orange grove depends upon care, skill, and busi- ness ability. The kind of orange grown with refer- ence to the demand, the judgment about more or less irrigation as affecting the quality, the cultivation of the soil, and the arrangements for marketing, are all elements in the problem. There are young groves at Riverside, five years old, that are paying ten per cent, net upon from $3000 to $5000 an acre; while there are older groves, which, at the prices for fruit in the spring of 1890 — $1 60 per box for seedlings and $3 per box for navels delivered at the packing-houses — paid at the rate of ten per cent, net on $7500 per acre. In all these estimates water must be reckoned as a prime factor. What, then, is water worth per inch, generally, in all this fruit region from Redlands to Los Angeles'? It is worth just the amount it will add to the commercial value of land irrigated by it, and that may be roughly estimated at from $500 to $1000 an inch of continuous flow. Take an illustration. A piece of land at Riverside below the flow of water was worth $300 an acre. Contiguous to it was another piece not irrigated which would not sell for $50 an acre. By bringing water to it, it would quickly sell 7 98 OUR ITAIjY. for $300, thus adding $250 to its value. As the esti- mate at Riverside is that one inch of water will irri- gate five acres of fruit land, five times $250 would be $1250 per inch, at which price water for irrigation has actually been sold at Riverside. The standard of measurement of water in Southern California is the miner's inch under four inches' pres- sure, or the amount that will flow through an inch- square opening under a pressure of four inches meas- ured from the surface of the water in the conduit to the centre of the opening through which it flows. This is nine gallons a minute, or, as it is figured, 1728 cubic feet or 12,960 gallons in twenty-four hours, and 1.50 of a cubic foot a second. This flow would cover ten acres about eighteen inches deep in a year; that is, it would give the land the equivalent of eighteen inches of rain, distributed exactly when and where it was needed, none being wasted, and more serviceable than flfty inches of rainfall as it generally comes. This, with the natural rainfall, is sufficient for citrus fruits and for corn and alfalfa, in soil not too sandy, and it is too much for grapes and all deciduous fruits. CHAPTER IX. THE ADVANTAGES OF IRBIGATION. It is necessary to understand this problem of irri- gation in order to comprehend Southern California, the exceptional value of its arable land, the certainty and great variety of its products, and the part it is to play in our markets. There are three factors in the ex]3ec- tation of a crop — soil, sunshine, and water. In a re- gion where we can assume the first two to be constant, the only uncertainty is water. Southern California is practically without rain from May to December. Upon this fact rests the immense value of its soil, and the certainty that it can supply the rest of the Union with a great variety of products. This certainty must be piu'chased by a previous investment of money. Water is everywhere to be had for money, in some localities by surface wells, in others by artesian-wells, in others from such streams as the Los Angeles and the Santa Ana, and from reservoirs secured by dams in the heart of the high mountains. It is possil:)le to compute the cost of any one of the systems of irriga- tion, to determine whether it will pay by calculating the amount of land it will irrigate. The cost of pro- curing water varies greatly with the situation, and it is conceivable that money can be lost in such an in- vestment, but I have yet to hear of any irrigation that has not been more or less successful. 100 OUR ITALY. Farming and fruit - raising are usually games of hazard. Grood crops and poor crops depend upon enough rain and not too much at just the right times. A wheat field which has a good start with moderate rain may later mther in a drought, or be ruined by too much water at the time of maturity. And, avoiding all serious reverses from either dryness or wet, every farmer knows that the quality and quantity of the product would be immensely improved if the growing stalks and roots could have water when and only when' they need it. The difference would be between, say, twenty and forty bushels of grain or roots to the acre, and that means the difference between profit and loss. There is probably not a crop of any kind grown in the great West that would not be immensely benefited if it could be irrigated once or twice a year; and prob- ably anywhere that water is attainable the cost of irri- gation would be abundantly paid in the yield fi'om year to year. Farming in the West with even a little irrigation would not be the game of hazard that it is. And it may further be assumed that there is not a vegetable patch or a fruit orchard East or West that would not yield better quahty and more abundantly with irrigation. But this is not all. Any farmer who attempts to raise grass and potatoes and strawberries on contigu- ous fields, subject to the same chance of drought or rainfall, has a vivid sense of his difficulties. The pota- toes are spoiled by the water that helps the grass, and the coquettish strawberry will not thrive on the regi- men that suits the grosser crops. In California, which by its climate and soil gives a greater variety of prod- ucts than any other region in the Union, the supply THE ADVANTAGES OF lEKIGATION. 101 of water is adjusted to the needs of each crop, even on contiguous fields. No two products need the same amount of water, or need it p^t tlie .same time. The orange needs more than the grape,, the alfalfa more than the orange, the peach, and. apricot 'Ifess* than the orange ; the olive, the fig, the ahnond, the English wal- nut, demand each a different supply. Depending en- KAISIN-CUKING. tirely on irrigation six months of the year, the farmer in Southern California is practically certain of his crop year after year ; and if all his plants and trees are in a healthful condition, as they will be if he is not too idle to cultivate as well as irrigate, his yield will be about double what it would be without systematic irri- gation. It is this practical control of the water the 102 OUR ITALY. year round, in a climate where sunshine is the rule, that makes the x^roductiveness of California so large as to be 'm0omp,r'5h(3usil:tle to Eastern people. Even the trees , are 41 oi. doj-'mant more than three or four months '•fii* the y-e^i^. • . ^ '' . - . <' But irrigation, in order to be successful, must be intelhgently applied. In unskilful hands it may work more damage than benefit. Mr. Theodore S. Van Dyke, who may always be quoted with confidence, says that the ground should never be flooded; that water must not touch the plant or tree, or come near enough to make the soil bake around it ; and that it should be let in in small streams for two or three days, and not in large streams for a few hours. It is of the first im- portance that the ground shall be stirred as soon as dry enough, the cultivation to be continued, and water never to be substituted for the cultivator to prevent baking. The methods of irrigation in use may be re- duced to three. First, the old Mexican way — running a small ditch from tree to tree, without any basin round the tree. Second, the basin system, where a large ba- sin is made round the tree, and filled several times. This should only be used where water is scarce, for it trains the roots like a brush, instead of sending them out laterally into the soil. Third, the Riverside meth- od, which is the best in the world, and produces the largest results with the least water and the least work. It is the closest imitation of the natural process of wetting by gentle rain. "A small flume, eight or ten inches square, of common red-wood is laid along the upper side of a ten-acre tract. At intervals of one to three feet, according to the nature of the ground and the stuff to be irrigated, are bored one-inch holes, mth THE ADVANTAGES OF IRRIGATION. 103 a small wooden button over them to regulate the flow. This flume costs a trifle, is left in position, lasts for years, and is always ready. Into this flume is turned from the ditch an irrigating head of 20, 25, or 30 mches of water, generally about 20 inches. This is divided by the holes and the buttons into streams of from one- sixth to one-tenth of an inch each, making fi'om 120 to 200 small streams. From five to seven furrows are made between two rows of trees, two between rows of grapes, one furrow between rows of corn, potatoes, etc. It may take from fifteen to twenty hours for one of the streams to get across the tract. They are allowed to run from forty-eight to seventy-two hours. The ground is then thoroughly wet in all directions, and three or four feet deep. As soon as the ground is dry enough cultivation is begun, and kept up from six to eight weeks before water is used again." Only when the ground is very sandy is the basin system necessary. Long experiment has taught that this system is by far the best; and, says Mr. Van Dyke, "Those whose ideas are taken from the wasteful systems of flooding or soaking from big ditches have something to learn in Southern Cahfornia." As to the quantity of water needed in the kind of soil most common in Southern California I will again quote Mr. Van Dyke: "They will tell you at Riverside that they use an inch of water to five acres, and some say an inch to three acres. But this is because they charge to the land all the waste on the main ditch, and because they use thirty per cent, of the water in July and August, when it is the lowest. But this is no test of the duty of water ; the amount actually dehvered on the land should be taken. What they actually use 104 OUR ITALY. for ten acres at Riverside, Redlands, etc., is a twenty- inch stream of three days' run five times a year, equal to 300 inches for one day, or one inch stead}^ run for 300 days. As an inch is the equivalent of 365 inches IKRIGATION BY ARTESIAX-WELL SYSTEM. for one day, or one inch for 365 days, 300 inches for one day equals an inch to twelve acres. Many use even less than this, running the water only two or two and a half days at a time. Others use more head; but it rarely exceeds 24 inches for three days and five times a year, which would be 72 multiplied by 5, or 360 inches — a little less than a full inch for a year for ten acres." I have given room to these details because the Riverside experiment, which results in such large re- turns of excellent fruit, is worthy of the attention of cultivators everywhere. The constant stirring of the THE ADVANTAGES OF IRRIGATION. 105 soil, to keep it loose as well as to keep down useless growths, is second in importance only to irrigation. Some years ago, when it was ascertained that tracts of land which had been regarded as only fit for herding cattle and sheep would by good ploughing and con- stant cultivation produce fair crops without any artifi- cial watering, there spread abroad a notion that irriga- tion could be dispensed with. There are large areas, dry and cracked on the surface, where the soil is moist three and four feet below the surface in the dry sea- son. By keeping the surface broken and well pulver- ized the moisture rises sufficiently to insure a crop. IKKIGATION BY PIPE SYSTEM. Many Western farmers have found out this secret of cultivation, and more will learn in time the good sense of not spreading themselves over too large an area; that forty acres planted and cultivated will give a lOG OUE ITALY. better return than eighty acres planted and neglected. Crops of various sorts are raised in Southern Califor- nia by careful cultivation with little or no irrigation, but the idea that cultivation alone will bring sufficient- ly good production is now practically abandoned, and the almost universal experience is that judicious irri- gation always improves the crop in quality and in quantity, and that irrigation and cultivation are both essential to profitable farming or fruit-raising. CHAPTER X. THE CHANCE FOE LABOKERS AND SMALL FAEMERS. . It would seem, then, that capital is necessary for successful agriculture or horticulture in Southern Cali- fornia. But where is it not needed? In New Eng- land ? In Kansas, where land which was given to actual settlers is covered with mortgages for money iibsolutely necessary to develop it ? But passing this by, what is the chance in Southern California for la- borers and for mechanics? Let us understand the sit- uation. In California there is no exception to the rule that continual labor, thrift, and foresight are essential to the getting of a good living or the gaining of a com- petence. No doubt speculation will spring up again. It is inevitable with the present enormous and yearly increasing yield of fruits, the better intelligence in vine culture, wine-making, and raisin-curing, the growth of marketable oranges, lemons, etc., and the consequent rise in the value of land. Doubtless fortunes will be made by enterprising companies who secure large areas of unimproved land at low prices, bring water on them, and then sell in small lots. But this will come to an end. The tendency is to subdivide the land into small holdings — into farms and gardens of ten and twenty acres. The great ranches are sure to be broken up. With the resulting settlement by industrious people the cities will again experience "booms;" but these are lUS OUR ITALY. not peculiar to California. In my mind I see the time when this region (because it will pay better propor- tionally to cultivate a small area) will be one of small farms, of neat cottages, of industrious homes. The owner is pretty certain to prosper — that is, to get a good living (which is independence), and lay aside a little yearly — if the work is done by himself and his family. And the peculiarity of the situation is that the farm or garden, whichever it is called, will give agreeable and most healthful occupation to all the boys and girls in the family all the days in the year that can be spared from the school. Aside from the ploughing, the labor is light. Pruning, grafting, bud- ding, the picking of the grapes, the gathering of the fruit from the trees, the sorting, packing, and canning, are labor for light and deft hands, and labor distrib- uted through the year. The harvest, of one sort and another, is almost continuous, so that young girls and boys can have, in well-settled districts, pretty steady employment — a long season in establishments packing oranges ; at another time, in canning fruits ; at an- other, in packing raisins. It goes mthout saying that in the industries now developed, and in others as important which are in their infancy (for instance, the culture of the olive for oil and as an article of food; the growth and cur- ing of figs ; the gathering of almonds, English walnuts, etc.), the labor of the owners of the land and their famihes will not suffice. There must be as large a proportion of day -laborers as there are in other re- gions where such products are grown. Chinese labor at certain seasons has been a necessity. Under the present policy of California this must diminish, and its- THE CHANCE FOR LABORERS AND 8MALL FARMERS. WJ place be taken by some other. The pay for this labor has always been good. It is certain to be more and more in demand. AYliether the pay ^^all ever approach near to the European standard is a question, but it is a fair presumption that the exceptional profit of the land, owing to its productiveness, will for a long time keep wages up. During the " boom " period all wages were high, those of skilled mechanics especially, owing to the great amount of building on speculation. The ordi- nary laborer on a ranch had $30 a month and board and lodging ; laborers of a higher grade, $2 to $2 50 a day ; skilled masons, $6 ; carpenters, from $3 50 to $5 ; X^lasterers, $4 to $5 ; house-servants, from $25 to $35 a month. Since the " boom," wages of skilled mechanics have declined at least 25 per cent., and there has been less demand for labor generally, except in connection with fruit raising and harvesting. It would be unwise for laborers to go to California on an uncertainty, but it can be said of that country with more confidence than of any other section that its i^eculiar industries, now daily increasing, mil absorb an increasing amount of day labor, and later on it will remunerate skilled artisan labor. In deciding whether Southern California would be an agreeable place of residence there are other things to be considered besides the productiveness of the soil, the variety of joroducts, the ease of out-door labor dis- tributed through the year, the certainty of returns for intelligent investment with labor, the equability of summer and 'winter, and the adaptation to personal health. There are always disadvantages attending the development of a new country and the evolution of a 110 OUR ITALY. new society. It is not a small thing, and may l)e one of daily discontent, the change from a landscape clad with verdnre, the riotous and irrepressible growth of a rainy region, to a land that the greater part of the year is green only where it is artificially watered, where all GARDEN SCENE, SANTA ANA. the hills and unwatered plains are brown and sere, where the fohage is coated with dust, an*d where driv- ing anywhere outside the sprinkled avenues of a town is to be enveloped in a cloud of powdered earth. This THE CHANCE FOR LABORERS AND SMALL FARMERS. Ill discomfort must be weighed against the commercial advantages of a land of irrigation. What are the chances for a family of very moder- ate means to obtain a foothold and thrive by farming in Southern California? I cannot answer this better than by giving substantially the experience of one family, and by saying that this has been paralleled, with change of details, by many others. Of course, in a highly developed settlement, where the land is mostly cultivated, and its actual yearly produce makes its price very high, it is not easy to get a foothold. But there are many regions — say in Orange County, and certainly in San Diego — where land can be had at a moderate price and on easy terms of payment. In- deed, there are few places, as I have said, where an industrious family would not find welcome and cordial help in estabhshing itself. And it must be remem- bered that there are many communities where life is very simple, and the great expense of keeping up an appearance attending life elsewhere need not be reck- oned. A few years ago a professional man in a New Eng- land city, who was in dehcate health, with his wife and five boys, all under sixteen, and one too young to be of any service, moved to San Diego. He had in money a small sum, less than a thousand dollars. He had no experience in farming or horticulture, and his health would not have permitted him to do much field work in our climate. Fortunately he found in the fer- tile El Cajon Valley, fifteen miles from San Diego, a farmer and fruit - grower, who had upon his place a small unoccupied house. Into that house he moved, furnishing it very simply with furniture bought in San 112 . OUR ITALY. Diego, and hired his services to the landlord. The work required was comparatively easy, in the orchard and ^aneyards, and consisted largely in superintending other laborers. The pay was about enough to support his family without encroaching on his little capital. Very soon, however, he made an arrangement to buy the small house and tract of some twenty acres on which he lived, on time, perhaps making a partial pay- ment. He began at once to put out an orange orchard and plant a vineyard; this he accomi)lished with the assistance of his boys, who did practically most of the work after the first planting, leaving him a chance to give most of his days to his employer. The orchard and vineyard work is so light that a smart, intelligent boy is almost as valuable a worker in the field as a man. The wife, meantime, kept the house and did its work. House -keepmg was comparatively easy ; httle fuel was required except for cooking ; the question of clothes was a minor one. In that climate wants for a fairly comfortable existence are fewer than with us. From the first, almost, vegetables, raised upon the ground while the vines and oranges were growing, contributed largely to the support of the family. The out-door life and freedom fi'om worry insured better health, and the diet of fruit and vegetables, suitable to the climate, reduced the cost of living to a mini- mum. As soon as the orchard and the vineyard be- gan to produce fruit, the owner was enal)led to quit working for his neighbor, and give all his time to the development of his own place. He increased his plant- ing ; he added to his house ; he bought a piece of land adjoining which had a grove of eucaly[3tus, which would supi^ly him with fuel. At first the society cir- THE CHANCE FOE L.^BOEEKS AND SMALL FAEMEES. 113 €le was small, and there was no school; but the in- coming of families had increased the number of chil- dren, so that an excellent public school was established. When I saw him he was living in conditions of com- fortable industry ; his land had trebled in value ; the pair of horses which he drove he had bought cheap, for they were Eastern horses ; but the chmate had brought them up, so that the team was a serviceable one in good condition. The story is not one of brill- iant success, but to me it is much more hopeful for the country than the other tales I heard of sudden wealth or lucky speculation. It is the founding in an unambitious way of a comfortable home. The boys of the family will branch out, get fields, orchards, ^dne- yards of their own, and add to the sohd producing in- dustry of the country. This orderly, contented indus- try, increasing its gains day by day, little by httle, is the life and hope of any State. 8 CHAPTER XL SOME DETAILS OF THE WONDEEFUL DEVELOPMENT. It is not the purpose of this vohime to describe Southern Cahf ornia. That has been thoroughly done ; and details, with figures and pictures in regard to ev- ery town and settlement, will be forthcoming on ap- plication, which will be helpful guides to persons who can see for themselves, or make sufficient allowance for local enthusiasm. But before speaking further of certain industries south of the great mountain ranges, the region north of the Sierra Madre, which is allied to Southern Cahfornia by its productions, should be mentioned. The beautiful antelope plains and the Kern Valley (where land is still cheap and very pro- ductive) should not be overlooked. The splendid San Joaquin Valley is already spealdng loudly and clearly for itself. The region north of the mountains of Kern County, shut in by the Sierra Nevada range on the east and the Coast Range on the west, substantially one valley, fifty to sixty miles in breadth, watered by the King and the San Joaquin, and gently sloping to the north, say for two hundred miles, is a land of mar- vellous capacity, capable of sustaining a dense popula- tion. It is cooler in winter than Southern California, and the summers average much warmer. Omng to the greater heat, the fruits mature sooner. It is just now becoming celebrated for its raisins, which in qual- DETAILS OF THE WONDERFUL DEVELOPMENT. 115 ity are unexcelled ; and its area, which can be w^ell ir- rigated from the rivers and from the mountains on either side, seems capable of i)roducing raisins enough to supply the w^orld. It is a wonderfully rich valley in a great variety of products. Fresno County, which occupies the centre of this valley, has 1,200,000 acres of agricultui'al and 4,-1:00,000 of mountain and pasture land. The city of Fresno, which occupies land that in 1870 was a sheep ranch, is the commercial centre of a beautiful agricultural and fruit region, and has a pop- ulation estimated at 12,000. From this centre were shipped in the season of 1890, 1500 car-loads of raisins. In 1865 the only exports of Fresno County were a few bales of wool. The report of 1889 gave a shipment of 700,000 boxes of raisins, and the whole export of 1890, of all products, was estimated at $10,000,000. Wheth- er these figures are exact or not, there is no doubt of the extraordinary success of the raisin industry, nor that this is a region of great activity and promise. The traveller has constantly to remind himself that this is a new country, and to be judged as a new coun- try« It is out of his experience that trees can grow so fast, and plantations in so short a time put on an ap- pearance of maturity. When he sees a roomy, pretty cottage overrun with vines and flowering plants, set in the midst of trees and lawns and gardens of tropical appearance and luxuriance, he can hardly believe that three years before this spot was desert land. When he looks over miles of vineyards, of groves of oranges, olives, walnuts, prunes, the trees all in vigorous bear- ing, he cannot beheve that five or ten years before the whole region was a waste. When he enters a hand- some village, with substantial buildings of brick, and 116 OUR ITALY. perhaps of stone, mtli fine school -houses, banks, ho- tels, an opera-honse, large packmg- houses, and ware- houses and shops of all sorts, with tasteful dwellings and lovely ornamented lawns, it is hard to understand A GRAPE-VINE, MONTECITO VALLEY, SANTA BAUBAKA. that all this is the creation of two or three years. Yet these surprises meet the traveller at every turn, and the wonder is that there is not visible more crudeness, eccentric taste, and evidence of hasty beginnings. San Bernardino is comparatively an old town. It DETAILS OF THE WONDERFUL DEVELOPMENT. 117 was settled in 1853 by a colony of Mormons from Salt Lake. The remains of this colony, less than a hnn- dred, still hve here, and have a church like the other sects, hut they call themselves Josephites, and do not practise polygamy. There is probably not a sect or schism in the United States that has not its represent- ative in Cahfornia. Until 1865 Sail Bernardino was merely a straggling settlement, and a point of distribu- tion for Arizona. The discovery that a large part of the county w^as adajDted to the orange and the vine, and the advent of the Santa Fe railway, changed all that. Land that then might have been bought for $4 an acre is now sold at from $200 to $300, and the city has become the busy commercial centre of a large number of growing villages, and of one of the most remarkable orange and vine districts in the world. It has many fine buildings, a population of about 6000, and a decided air of vigorous business. The great plain about it is mainly devoted to agricultural prod- ucts, which are grown without irrigation, while in the near foot-hills the orange and the vine flourish by the aid of irrigation. Artesian -wells abound in the San Bernardino plain, but the mountains are the great and unfailing source of water supply. The Bear Valley Dam is a most daring and gigantic construction. A sohd wall of masonry, 300 feet long and 60 feet high, curving tow^ards the reservoir, creates an inland lake in the mountains holding water enough to irrigate 20,000 acres of land. This is conveyed to distributing reser- voirs in the east end of the valley. On a terrace in the foot-hills a few miles to the north, 2000 feet above the sea, are the Arrow-head Hot Springs (named from the figure of a gigantic "arrow-head" on the mount- 118 OUK ITALY. ain above), already a favorite resort for health and pleasure. The views from the plain of the picturesque foot-hiUs and the snow-peaks of the San Bernardino range are exceedingly fine. The marvellous beauty of the purple and deep violet of the giant hills at sunset, with spotless snow, lingers in the memory. Perhaps the settlement of Redlands, ten miles by rail east of San Bernardino, is as good an illustration as any of rapid development and great promise. It is devoted to the orange and the grape. As late as 1875 much of it was Government land, considered value- less. It had a few settlers, but the town, which counts now about 2000 people, w^as only begun in 1887. It has many sohd brick edifices and many pretty cottages on its gentle slopes and rounded hills, overlooked by the great mountains. The \iew from any point of vantage of orchards and "vdneyards and semi-tropical gardens, with the mde sky-line of noble and snow-clad hills, is exceedingly attractive. The region is watered by the Santa Ana River and Mill Creek, but the main irrigating streams, which make every hill-top to bloom with vegetation, come from the Bear Yalley Reservoir. On a hill to the south of the town the Smiley Brothers, of Catskill fame, are building fine residences, and plant- ing their 125 acres with fruit - trees and \dnes, ever- greens', flowers, and semi -tropic shrubbery in a style of landscape-gardening that in three years at the fur- thest will make this spot one of the few great show- places of the country. Behind their ridge is the San Mateo Canon, through which the Southern Pacific Railway runs, while in front are the splendid sloping- plains, valleys, and orange groves, and the great sweep of mountains from San Jacinto round to the Sierra DETAILS OF THE WONDEEFUL DEVELOPMENT. 119 Maclre range. It is almost a matchless prospect. The climate is most agreeable, the plantations increase month by month, and thus far the orange-trees have not been visited by the scale, nor the vines by any sickness. Although the groves are still young, there were shipped from Redlands in the season of 1889-90 80 car-loads of oranges, of 286 boxes to the car, at a price averaging nearly $1000 a car. That season's planting of oranges was over 1200 acres. It had over 5000 acres in fruits, of which nearly 3000 were in peaches, apricots, grapes, and other sorts called de- ciduous. Riverside may without prejudice be regarded as the centre of the orange growth and trade. The rail- way shipments of oranges from Southern California in the season of 1890 aggregated about 2100 car-loads, or about 800,000 boxes, of oranges (in which estimate the lemons are included), valued at about $1,500,000. Of this shipment more than liaK was from Riverside. This has been, of course, greatly stimulated by the im- proved railroad facilities, among them the shortening of the time to Chicago by the Santa Fe route, and the running of special fruit trains. Southern California responds like magic to this chance to send her fruits to the East, and the area planted month by month is something enormous. It is estimated that the crop of oranges alone in 1891 will be over 1500 car-loads. We are accustomed to discount all California esti- mates, but I think that no one yet has comprehended the amount to which the shipments to Eastern mar- kets of vegetables and fresh and canned fruits will reach within five years. I base my prediction upon some observation of the Eastern demand and the re- 120 OUE ITALY. ports of fruit - dealers, upon what I saw of the new planting all over the State in 1890, and upon the sta- tistics of increase. Take Riverside as an example. In 1872 it was a poor sheep ranch. In 1880-81 it shipped 15 car-loads, or 1290 boxes, of oranges ; the amoimt yearly increased, until in 1888-89 it was 925 car-loads^, or 263,879 boxes. In 1890 it rose to 1253 car-loads, or 358,341 boxes ; and an important fact is that the largest shipment was in April (455 car-loads, or 130,226 boxes), at the time when the supply from other orange regions for the markets East had nearly ceased. It should be said, also, that the quality of the oranges has vastly improved. This is owing to better cultivation, knowledge of proper irrigation, and the adoption of the best va- rieties for the soil. As different sorts of or- anges mature at differ- ent seasons, a variety is needed to give edible fruit in each month from December to May inclu- sive. In February, 1887, I could not find an or- ange of the first class compared with the best fruit in other regions. It may have been too early for the varieties I tried ; but I believe there has been a marked improvement in quality. In May, 1890, we found delicious oranges almost everywhere. The seedless Washington and Australian navels are fa- vorites, especially for the market, on account of their m^ IRRIGATTNfi AN ORCHARD. ORANGE CULTURE. Packing Oranges— Navel Orange-tree Six Years Old— Irrigating an Orange GrDve. DETAILS OF THE WONDEEFUL DEVELOPMENT. 123 great size and fine color. When in perfection tliey are very fine, but the skin is thick and the texture coarser than that of some others. The best orange I happened to taste was a Tahiti seedhng at Monte- cito (Santa Barbara). It is a small orange, with a thin skin and a compact, sweet puli3 that leaves lit- tle fibre. It resembles the famous orange of Malta. But there are many excellent varieties — the Mediter- ranean sweet, the paper rind St. Michael, the Maltese blood, etc. The experiments with seedhngs are profit- able, and will give ever new varieties. I noted that the "grape fruit," which is becoming so much liked in the East, is not appreciated in California. The city of Riverside occupies an area of some five miles by three, and claims to have 6000 inhabitants ; the centre is a substantial town with fine school and other public buildings, but the region is one succession of orange groves and vineyards, of comfortable houses and broad avenues. One avenue through which we drove is 125 feet wide and 12 miles long, planted in three rows with palms, magnohas, the Grevillea robusta (Australian fern), the pepper, and the eucalyptus, and lined all the way by splendid orange groves, in the midst of which are houses and grounds with semi- tropical attractions. Nothing could be loveher than such a scene of fruits and flowers, with the back- ground of purple hills and snowy peaks. The mount- ain views are superb. Frost is a rare visitor. Not in fifteen years has there been enough to affect the orange. There is httle rain after March, but there are fogs and dew-falls, and the ocean breeze is felt dail}^ The grape grown for raisins is the muscat, and this has had no " sickness." Vigilance and a quarantine 124 OUR ITALY. have also kept from the orange the scale which has been so annoying in some other localities. The orange, when cared for, is a generous hearer ; some trees produce twenty boxes each, and there are areas of twenty acres in good bearing which have brought to the owner as much as $10,000 a year. The w^hole region of the Santa Ana and San Ga- briel valleys, from the desert on the east to Los Ange- les, the city of gardens, is a surprise, and year by year an increasing wonder. In production it exhausts the catalogue of fruits and flowers ; its scenery is varied by ever new combinations of the picturesque and the luxuriant ; every town boasts some special advantage in climate, soil, water, or society ; but these differences, many of them visible to the eye, cannot appear in any written description. The traveller may prefer the scenery of Pasadena, or that of Pomona, or of River- side, but the same words in regard to color, fertility, combinations of orchards, avenues. Mils, must appear in the description of each. Ontario, Pomona, Puente, Alhambra — wherever one goes there is the same won- der of color and production. Pomona is a pleasant city in the midst of fine orange groves, watered abundantly by artesian -wells and irrigating ditches from a mountain reservoir. A specimen of the ancient adobe residence is on the Meserve plantation, a lovely old place, with its gardens of cherries, strawberries, olives, and oranges. From the top of San Jose hill we had a view of a plain twenty-five miles by fifty in extent, dotted with culti- vation, surrounded by mountains — a wonderful pros- pect. Pomona, like its sister cities in this region, has a regard for the intellectual side of life, exhibited in DETAILS OF THE WONDEKFUL DE\^ELOPMENT. 125 good school-houses and pubhc hbraries. In the hbra- ry of Pomona is what may be regarded as the tutelary deity of the place — the goddess Pomona, a good copy in marble of the famous statue in the Uffizi Gallery, presented to the city by the Rev. C. F. Loop. This enterprising citizen is making valuable experiments in olive culture, raising a dozen varieties in order to ascertain which is best adapted to this soil, and which will make the best return in oil and in a marketable product of cured fruit for the table. The growth of the olive is to be, it seems to me, one of the leading and most permanent industries of Southern California. It will give us, what it is nearly impossible to buy now, pure olive oil, in i^lace of the cotton-seed and lard mixture in general use. It is a most wholesome and palatable article of food. Those whose chief experience of the olive is the large, coarse, and not agreeable Spanish variety, used only as an ap- petizer, know little of the value of the best varieties as food, nutritious as meat, and always delicious. Grood bread and a dish of pickled olives make an excellent meal. The sort known as the Mission olive, planted by the Franciscans a century ago, is generally grown now, and the best fruit is from the older trees. The most successful attempts in cultivating the olive and putting it on the market have been made by Mr. F. A. Kimball, of National City, and Mr. EUwood Cooper, of Santa Barbara. The experiments have gone far enough to show that the industry is very remunera- tive. The best ohve oil I have ever tasted anywhere is that produced from the Cooper and the Kimball orchards ; but not enough is produced to supply the local demand. Mr. Cooper has written a careful trea- 126 OUE ITALY. IN A FIELD OF GOLDEN PUMPKINS. tise on olive culture, which will be of great service to all growers. The art of pickling is not yet mastered, and perhaps some other variety will be preferred to the old Mission for the table. A mature olive grove in good bearing is a fortune. I feel sure that within twenty-five years this will be one of the most profit- able industries of California, and that the demand for pure oil and edible fruit in the United States will drive out the adulterated and inferior present commercial products. But California can easily ruin its reputa- tion by adopting the European systems of adultera- tion. We drove one day from Arcadia Station through DETAILS OF THE WONDEKFUL DEVELOPMENT. 127 the region occupied by the Baldmn plantations, an area of over fifty thousand acres — a happy illustration of what industry and capital can do in the way of va- riety of productions, especially in what are called the San Anita vineyards and orchards, extending south- ward from the foot-hills. About the home place and in many sections where the irrigating streams flow one might fancy he was in the tropics, so abundant and brilliant are the flowers and exotic plants. There are splendid orchards of oranges, almonds, English walnuts, lemons, peaches, apricots, figs, apples, and olives, with grain and corn — in short, everything that grows in garden or field. The ranch is famous for its brandies and wines as well as fruits. We lunched at the East San Gabriel Hotel, a charming place with a peaceful view from the wide veranda of live-oaks, or- chards, vineyards, and the noble Sierra Madre range. The Californians may be excused for using the term paradisiacal about such scenes. Flowers, flowers ev- erywhere, color on color, and the song of the mocking- bird! CHAPTER XII. HOW THE FEUIT PERILS WEEE MET. — FURTHER DETAILS OF LOCALITIES. In the San Gabriel Yalley and elsewhere I saw evi- dence of the perils that attend the cnltiu-e of the vine and the fruit-tree in all other countries, and from which California in the early days thought it was ex- empt. Within the past three or four years there has prevailed a sickness of the vine, the cause of which is unknown, and for which no remedy has been discov- ered. No blight was apparent, but the ^ine sickened and failed. The disease was called consumption of the vine. I saw many vineyards subject to it, and hundreds of acres of old vines had been rooted up as useless. I was told by a fruit -buyer in Los Angeles that he thought the raisin industry below Fresno was ended unless new^ planting recovered the \dnes, and that the great wine fields were about ''played out." The truth I believe to l^e that the disease is confined to the \dneyards of Old Mission grapes. Whether these had attained the limit of their active life, and sickened, I do not know. The trouble for a time was alarming; but new plantings of other varieties of grapes have been successful, the vineyards look health- ful, and the growers expect no further difficulty. The planting, which was for a time suspended, has been more vigorously renewed. flow THE FRUIT PERILS WERE MET. 129 The insect pests attacking the orange were even more serious, and in 1887-88, though httle was pub- hshed about it, there was something hke a panic, in the fear that the orange and lemon culture in South- ern Cahfornia would be a failure. The enemies were the black, the red, and the white scale. The latter, the icerya pnrclum, or cottony cushion scale, was espe- cially loathsome and destructive ; whole orchards w^ere enfeebled, and no way was discovered of staying its progress, which threatened also the ohve and every other tree, shrub, and flower. Science was called on to discover its parasite. This was found to be the Australian lady-bug (vedolia cardinalis), and in 1888-89 quantities of this insect were imported and spread throughout Los Angeles County, and sent to Santa Barbara and other afflicted districts. The effect was magical. The vedolia attacked the cottony scale with intense vigor, and everywhere killed it. The orchards revived as if they had been recreated, and the danger was over. The enemies of the black and the red scale have not yet been discovered, but they probably will be. Meantime the gi'owers have recovered courage, and are fertilizing and fumigating. In Santa Ana I found that the red scale was fought successfully by fumigating the trees. The operation is performed at night under a movable tent, which covers the tree. The cost is about twenty cents a tree. One lesson of all this is that trees must be fed in order to be kept vigorous to resist such attacks, and that fruit-raising, considering the number of enemies that all fi'uits have in all climates, is not an idle occupation. The clean, handsome English walnut is about the only tree in the State that thus far has no enemy. 9 130 OUR ITALY. One cannot take anywhere else a more exhila- rating, delightful drive than about the rolling, highly cultivated, many-villaed Pasadena, and out to the foot- hills and the Sierra Madre Villa. He is constantly ex- claiming at the varied loveliness of the scene — oranges, palms, formal gardens, hedges of Monterey cypress. It is very Italy-like. The Sierra Madre furnishes abun- dant water for all the valley, and the swdft irrigating stream from Eaton Canon waters the Sierra Madre Villa. Among the peaks above it rises Mt. Wilson, a thousand feet above the plain, the site selected for the Harvard Observatory with its ttO-inch glass. The clearness of the air at this elevation, and the absence of clouds night and day the greater portion of the year, make this a most advantageous position, it is said, to use the glass in dissolving nebulae. The Sierra Madre Villa, once the most favorite resort in this re- gion, was closed. In its sheltered situation, its luxu- riant and half -neglected gardens, its wide plantations and irrigating streams, it reminds one of some secu- larized monastery on the promontory of Sorrento. It only needs good management to make the hotel very attractive and especially agreeable in the months of winter. Pasadena, which exhibits everywhere evidences of wealth and culture, and claims a permanent popula- tion of 12,000, has the air of a winter resort ; the great Hotel Raymond is closed in May, the boarding-houses want occupants, the shops and livery-stables custom- ers, and the streets lack movement. This is easily explained. It is not because Pasadena is not an agree- able summer residence, but because the visitors are drawn there in the winter principally to escape the HOW THE FKUIT PERILS WERE MET. 133 inclement climate of the North and East, and because special efforts have been made for their entertainment in the winter. We found the atmosphere delightful in the middle of May. The mean summer heat is 67^, and the nights are always cool. The hills near by may be resorted to with the certainty of finding as decided a change as. one desires in the summer season. I must repeat that the Southern Cahfornia summer is not at all understood in the East. The statement of the gen- eral equability of the temperature the year through must be insisted on. We lunched one day in a tj^^ical California house, in the midst of a garden of fruits, flowers, and tropical shrubs ; in a house that might be described as half roses and half tent, for added to the wooden structure were rooms of canvas, which are used as sleeping apartments winter and summer. This attractive region, so lovely in its cultivation, with so many charming drives, offering good shooting on the plains and in the hills, and centrally placed for excursions, is only eight miles from the busy cit}^ of Los Angeles. An excellent point of \dew of the coun- try is from the graded hill on which stands the Ray- mond Hotel, a hill isolated but easy of access, which is in itself a mountain of bloom, color, and fi'agrance. From all the broad verandas and from every window the prospect is charming, whether the eye rests upon cultivated orchards and gardens and pretty \dllas, or upon the purple foot-hills and the sno\^'y ranges. It enjoys a daily ocean breeze, and the air is always ex- hilarating. This noble hill is a study in landscape- gardening. It is a mass of brilliant color, and the hos- pitality of the region generally to foreign growths may be estimated by the trees acclimated on these slopes. 134 OUE ITALY. They are the pepper, eucalyptus, pine, cypriis, syca- more, red -wood, ohve, date and fan pahns, banana, pomegranate, guava, Japanese persimmon, umbrella, maple, elm, locust, English walnut, birch, ailantus, pop- lar, willow, and more ornamental shrubs than one can well name. I can indulge in few locality details except those which are illustrative of the general character of the country. In passing into Orange County, which was recently set off from Los Angeles, we come into a re- gion of less " fashion," but one that for many reasons is attractive to people of moderate means who are content with independent simphcity. The country about the thriving village of Santa Ana is very rich, being abundantly watered by the Santa Ana River and by artesian -wells. The town is nine miles from the ocean. On the ocean side the land is mainly agri- cultural ; on the inland side it is specially adapted to fruit. We drove about it, and in Tustin City, which has many pleasant residences and a vacant "boom" hotel, through endless plantations of oranges. On the road towards Los Angeles we passed large herds of cattle and sheep, and fine groves of the Enghsh wal- nut, which thrives especially well in this soil and the neighborhood of the sea. There is comparatively ht- tle waste land in this valley district, as one may see by driving through the country about Santa Ana, Orange, Anaheim, Tustin City, etc. Anaheim is a prosperous German colony. It was here that Madame Modjeska and her husband. Count Bozenta, first set- tled in California. They own and occupy now a pict- ui'esque ranch in the Santiago Canon of the Santa Ana range, twenty-two miles from Santa Ana. This HOW THE FRUIT PERILS WERE MET. 135 is one of the richest regions in the State, and with its fair qupta of working population, it will be one of the most productive. From Newport, on the coast, or from San Pedro, one may visit the island of Santa Catalina. Want of time prevented our going there. Sportsmen enjoy there the exciting pastime of hunting the wild goat. From the photographs I saw, and from all I heard of it, it must be as picturesque a resort in natural beauty as the British Channel islands. Los Angeles is the metropolitan centre of all this region. A handsome, sohd, thri^ang city, environed by gardens, gay everywhere w^ith flowers, it is too well known to require any description from me. To the traveller from the East it will alw^ays be a surprise. Its growth has been phenomenal, and although it may not equal the expectations of the crazy excitement of 1886-87, 50,000 people is a great assemblage for a new city w^hicli numbered only about 11,000 in 1880. It of course felt the subsidence of the " boom," but while I missed the feverish crowds of 1887, 1 was struck with its substantial progress in fine, solid buildings, pave- ments, sewerage, railways, educational facilities, and ornamental grounds. It has a secure hold on the commerce of the region. The assessment roll of the city increased from $7,627,632 in 1881 to $11,871,073 in 1889. Its bank business, public buildings, school- houses, and street improvements are in accord with this increase, and show solid, vigorous growth. It is altogether an attractive city, whether seen on a drive through its well-planted and bright avenues, or looked down on from the hills which are climbed by the cable roads. A curious social note was the effect of the 136 OUE ITALY. " boom " excitement upon the birth rate. The report of children nnder the age of one year was in 1887, 271 boy babies and 264 girl babies ; from 1887 to 1888 there were only 176 boy babies and 162 girl babies. The retiu^n at the end of 1889 was 465 boy babies, and 500 girl babies. Although Los Angeles County still produces a con- siderable quantity of wine and brandy, I have an im- OLWE-TREES SIX YEARS OLD. pression that the raising of raisins will supplant mne- maldng largely in Southern California, and that the principal wine producing will be in the northern por- tions of the State. It is certain that the best quality is HOW THE FRUIT PEEILS WERE MET. 137 grown in the foot-hills. The reputation of "Cahfornia Amines" has been much injured by placing upon the market crude juice that was in no sense wine. Great improvement has been made in the past three to five years, not only in the vine and knowledge of the soil adapted to it, but in the handling and the curing of the wine. One can now find without much difficulty excellent table wines — sound claret, good white Reis- ling, and sauterne. None of these wines are exactly hke the foreign wines, and it may be some time before the taste accustomed to foreign wines is educated to like them. But in Eastern markets some of the best brands are already much called for, and I think it only a question of time and a little more experience when the best Cahfornia wines will be popular. I found in the San Francisco market excellent red wines at $3.50 the case, and what was still more remarkable, at some of the best hotels sound, agreeable claret at from fif- teen to twenty cents the pint bottle. It is quite unnecessary to emphasize the attrac- tions of Santa Barbara, or the productiveness of the valleys in the counties of Santa Barbara and Ventura. There is no more poetic region on the continent than the bay south of Point Conception, and the pen and the camera have made the w^orld tolerably famihar with it. There is a graciousness, a softness, a color in the sea, the caiions, the mountains there that dwell in the memory. It is capable of inspiring the same love that the Greek colonists felt for the region between the bays of Salerno and Naples. It is as fruitful as the Italian shores, and can support as dense a popula- tion. The figures that have been given as to produc- tiveness and variety of productions apj^ly to it. Hav- 138 OUR ITALY. ins: more winter rainfall than the counties south of it, agriculture is profitable in most years. Since the railway was made down the valley of the Santa Clara River and along the coast to Santa Barbara, a great impulse has been given to farming. Orange and other fruit orchards have increased. Near Buenaventura I saw hundreds of acres of lima beans. The yield is about one ton to the acre. With good farming the valleys yield crops of corn, barley, and wheat much above the average. Still it is a fruit region, and no variety has yet been tried that does not produce very well there. The rapid growth of all trees has enabled the region to demonstrate in a short time that there is scarcely any that it cannot naturalize. The curi- ous growths of tropical lands, the trees of aromatic and medicinal gums, the trees of exquisite fohage and wealth of fragrant blossoms, the sturdy forest natives, and the bearers of edible nuts are all to be found in the gardens and by the road-side, from New Eng- land, from the Southern States, from Europe, from North and South Africa, Southern Asia, China, Japan, from Australia and New Zealand and South America. The region is an arboreal and botanical garden on an immense scale, and full of siu'prises. The floriculture is even more astonishing. Every land is represented. The profusion and vigor are as wonderful as the vari- ety. At a flower show in Santa Barbara were exhib- ited 160 varieties of roses all cut from one garden the same morning. The open garden rivals the Eastern conservatory. The country is new and many of the conditions of life may be primitive and rude, but it is impossible that any region shall not be beautiful, clothed with such a profusion of bloom and color. HOW THE FRUIT PERILS WERE MET. I39 I have spoken of the rapid growth. The practical advantage of this as to fruit-trees is that one begins to have an income from them here sooner than in the East. No one need be under the delusion that he can hve in California without work, or thrive without in- cessant and intelligent industry, but the distinction of the country for the fruit-grower is the rapidity with which trees and vines mature to the extent of beina" profitable. But nothing thrives without care, and kindly as the chmate is to the weak, it cannot be too much insisted on that this is no place for confirmed invalids who have not money enough to live without work. CHAPTER XIII. THE ADVANCE OF CULTIVATION SOUTHWAKD. The immense county of San Diego is on the thresh- old of its development. It has comparatively only spots of cultivation here and there, in an area on the western slope of the county only, that Mr. Van Dyke estimates to contain about one million acres of good arable land for farming and fruit-raising. This mountainous region is full of charming valleys, and hidden among the hills are fruitful nooks capable of sustaining thri\^ng communities. There is no doubt about the salubrity of the climate, and one can liter- ally suit himself as to temperature by choosing his elevation. The traveller by rail down the wild Temec- ula Canon will have some idea of the picturesqueness of the country, and, as he descends in the broadening valley, of the beautiful mountain parks of live-oak and clear running water, and of the richness both for graz- ing and grain of the ranches of the Santa Margarita, Las Flores, and Santa Rosa. Or if he will see what a few years of vigorous cultivation will do, he may visit Escondido, on the river of that name, which is at an elevation of less than a thousand feet, and fom^teen miles from the ocean. This is only one of many set- tlements that have great natural beauty and thrifty industrial hfe. In that region are numerous attractive villai^es. I have a report from a little canon, a few THE ADVANCE OF CULTIVATION SOUTHWARD. 141 »' ^,11 #rsiiLAli feAJ. TA BAKBAKA. miles north of Escondido, where a woman with an invahd husband settled in 1883. The gromid was thick- ly covered with brush, and its only product was rabbits and quails. In 1888 they had 100 acres cleared and fenced, mostly devoted to orchard fruits and berries. They had in good bearing over 1200 fruit-trees, among them 200 oranges and 283 figs, which yielded one and a half tons of figs a week during the bearing season, from August to November. The sprouts of the peach-trees grew twelve feet in 18S9. Of course such a little fruit farm as this is the result 142 OUR ITALY. of self-denial and hard work, but I am sure that the experiment in this region need not be exceptional. San Diego will be to the southern part of the State what San Francisco is to the northern. Nature seems to have arranged for this, by providing a magnificent harbor, when it shut off the southern part by a mount- ain range. During the town -lot lunacy it was said that San Diego could not grow because it had no back country, and the retort was that it needed no back country, its harbor would command commerce. The fallacy of this assumption lay in the forgetfulness of the fact that the profitable and peculiar exports of Southern California must go East by rail, and reach a market in the shortest possible time, and that the in- habitants look to the Pacific for comparatively little of the imports they need. If the Isthmus route were opened by a ship -canal, San Diego would doubtless have a great share of the Pacific trade, and when the population of that part of the State is large enough to demand great importations from the islands and lands of the Pacific, this harbor will not go begging. But in its present development the entire Pacific trade of Japan, China, and the islands, gives only a small divi- dend each to the competing ports. For these develop- ments this fine harbor must wait, but meantime the wealth and prosperity of San Diego lie at its doors. A country as large as the three richest New England States, with enormous wealth of mineral and stone in its mountains, with one of the finest climates in the world, with a million acres of arable land, is certainly capable of building up one great seaport town. These million of acres on the western slope of the mountain ranges of the country are geographically tributary to THE ADVANCE OF CULTIVATION SOUTHWARD. 148 San Diego, and almost every acre by its products is certain to attain a high value. The end of the ridiculous speculation in lots of 1887-88 was not so disastrous in the loss of money in- vested, or even in the ruin of great expectations by the collapse of fictitious values, as in the stoppage of im- migration. The country has been ever since adjusting itself to a normal growth, and the recovery is just in proportion to the arrival of settlers who come to work and not to speculate. I had heard that the "boom" had left San Diego and vicinity the "deadest" region to be found anywhere. A speculator would probably so regard it. But the people have had a great acces- sion of common-sense. The expectation of attracting settlers by a fictitious show has subsided, and atten- tion is directed to the development of the natural riches of the country. Since the boom San Diego has perfected a splendid system of drainage, paved its streets, extended its railways, built up the business part of the town solidly and handsomely, and greatly improved the mesa above the town. In all essentials of permanent growth it is much better in appearance than in 1887. Business is better organized, and, best of all, there is an intelhgent appreciation of the agricult- ural resources of the country. It is discovered that San Diego has a "back country" capable of producing great wealth. The Chamber of Commerce has organ- ized a permanent exhibition of products. It is as- sisted in this work of stimulation by competition by a *' Ladies' Annex," a society numbering some five liun- dred ladies, who devote themselves not to aesthetic pursuits, but to the quickening of all the industries of the farm and the garden, and all public improvements. 1-1:4 OUE ITALY. To the mere traveller who devotes onlj^ a couple of weeks to an examination of this region it is evident that the spirit of industry is in the ascendant, and the result is a most gratifying increase in orchards and vineyards, and the storage and distribution of water for irrigation. The region is unsurpassed for the pro- duction of the orange, the lemon, the raisin-grape, the fig, and the ohve. The great reservoir of the Cuy- amaca, which supplies San Diego, sends its flume around the fertile valley of El Cajon (which has already a great reputation for its raisins), and this has rissg?*'**'. become a garden, the land rising in value every year. The re- gion of National City and Chula Vista is supplied by the res- - ervoir made by the great Sweetwater Dam — a marvel of engineering skill — and is not only most productive in fruit, but is attractive by pretty SWEETWATER DAM. THE ADVANCE OF CULTIVATION SOUTHWARD. 145 villas and most sightly and agreeable homes. It is an unanswerable reply to the inquiry if this region was not killed by the boom that all the arable land, except that staked out for fancy city prices, has steadily risen in value. This is true of all the bay region down through Otay (where a promising watch factory is es- tabhshed) to the border at Tia Juana. The rate of set- tlement in the county outside of the cities and towns has been greater since the boom than before — a most healthful indication for the future. According to the school census of 1889, Mr. Van Dyke estimates a per- manent growth of nearly 50,000 people in the county in four years. Half of these are well distributed in small settlements which have the advantages of roads, mails, and school -houses, and which offer to settlers who wish to work adjacent unimproved land at prices which experience shows are still moderate. 10 CHAPTER XIV. A LAND OF AGKEEABLE HOMES. In this imperfect conspectus of a vast territory I should -be sorry to say anything that can raise false expectations. Our country is very big; and though scarcely any part of it has not some advantages, and notwithstanding the census figures of our population, it will be a long time before oiu' vast territory will fill up. California must wait with the rest ; but it seems to me to have a great future. Its position in the Union with regard to its peculiar productions is unique. It can and will supply us with much that we now im- port, and labor and capital sooner or later will find their profit in meeting the growing demand for Cah- fornia products. There are many people m the United States who could prolong life by moving to Southern California; there are many who would find life easier there by rea- son of the climate, and because out-door labor is more agreeable there the year through ; many who have to fight the weather and a niggardly soil for existence could there have pretty little homes with less expense of money and labor. It is well that people for whom this is true should know it. It need not influence those who are already well placed to try the fortune of a distant country and new associations. I need not emphasize the disadvantage in regard to A LAND OF AGREEABLE HOMES. 147 beauty of a land that can for haK the year only keep a vernal appearance by migation ; but to eyes accus- tomed to it there is something pleasing in the con- trast of the green valleys with the brown and gold and red of the hills. The picture in my mind for the fut- ure of the Land of the Sun, of the mountains, of the sea — which is only an enlargement of the i)icture of the present — ^is one of great beauty. The rapid growth of fruit and ornamental trees and the profusion of flow- ers render easy the making of a lovely home, however hinnble it may be. The nature of the industries — re- quiring careful attention to a small piece of ground — points to small holdings as a rule. The picture I see is of a land of small farms and gardens, highly culti- vated, in all the valleys and on the foot-hills ; a land, therefore, of luxuriance and great productiveness and agreeable homes. I see everywhere the gardens, the vineyards, the orchards, with the various greens of the olive, the fig, and the orange. It is always picturesque, because the country is broken and even rugged ; it is always interesting, because of the contrast with the mountains and the desert ; it has the color that makes Southern Italy so poetic. It is the fairest field for the experiment of a contented community, without any poverty and without excessive wealth. CHAPTER XY. SOME WONDERS BY THE WAY. — YOSEMITE. — MARIPOSA TREES. — MONTEREY. I WENT to it with reluctance. I shrink from at- tempting to say anything about it. If you knew that there was one spot on the earth where Nature kept her secret of secrets, the key to the action of her most gigantic and patient forces through the long eras, the marvel of constructive and destructive energy, in feat- ures of sublimity made possible to mental endurance by the most exquisite devices of painting and sculpt- ure, the wonder which is without parallel or compari- son, w^ould you not hesitate to approach if? Would you not wander and delay with this and that wonder, and this and that beauty and nobility of scenery, put- ting off the day when the imagination, which is our highest gift, must be extinguished by the reahty? The mind has this judicious timidity. Do we not loiter in the avenue of the temple, dallpng with the vista of giant plane-trees and statues, and noting the carving and the color, mentally shrinking from the moment when the full glory shall burst upon us? We turn and look when we are near a summit, we pick a flower, we note the shape of the clouds, the passing breeze, before we take the last step that shall reveal to us the vast panorama of mountains and valleys. SOME WONDERS BY THE WAY. 149 I cannot bring myself to any description of the Grand Canon of the Colorado by any other route, mental or physical, than that by which we reached it, by the way of such beauty as Monterey, such a wonder as the Yosemite, and the infinite and pictu- resque deserts of New Mexico and Arizona. I think the mind needs the training- in the desert scenery to enable it to grasp the unique sublimity of the Grand Canon. The road to the Yosemite, after leaving the branch of the Southern Pacific at Raymond, is an imnecessa- rily fatiguing one. The journey by stage — sixty -five miles — is accomplished in less than two days — tliii'ty- nine miles the first day, and twenty -six the second. The driving is necessarily slow, because two mountain ridges have to be surmounted, at an elevation each of about 6500 feet. The road is not a "road" at all as the term is understood in Switzerland, Spain, or in any liighly civilized region — that is, a graded, smooth, hard, and sufficiently broad track. It is a makeshift highway, generally narrow (often too narrow for two teams to pass), cast up with loose material, or exca- vated on the slopes with frequent short curves and double curves. Like all mountain roads which skirt precipices, it may seem "pokerish," but it is safe enough if the drivers are skilful and careful (all the drivers on this route are not only excellent, but ex- ceedingly civil as well), and there is no break in wag- on or harness. At the season this trip is made the weather is apt to be warm, but this would not matter so much if the road were not intolerably dusty. Over a great part of the way the dust rises in clouds and is stifling. On a well -engineered road, witli a good 150 OUR ITALY. road-bed. the time of passage might not be shortened, but the journey would be made mth positive comfort and enjoyment, for though there is a certain monot- ony in the scenery, there is the wild freshness of nat- ure, now and then an extensive prospect, a sight of the snow -clad Nevadas, and vast stretches of wood- land; and a part of the way the forests are magnifi- cent, especially the stupendous growth of the sugar- IDine. These noble forests are now protected by their inaccessibility. From 1855 to 1864, nine years, the Yosemite had 653 visitors ; in 1861 there were 117. The number increased steadily till 1869, the year the overland rail- road was completed, when it jumped to 1122. Be- tween 4000 and 5000 persons visit it now each year. The number would be enormously increased if it could be reached by rail, and doubtless a road will be built to the valley in the near future, perhaps up the Merced River. I beheve that the pilgrims who used to go to the Yosemite on foot or on horseback regret the building of the stage road, the enjoyment of the wonderful valley being somehow cheapened by the comparative ease of reaching it. It is feared that a railway would still fiu'ther cheapen, if it did not vul- garize it, and that passengers by train would miss the momitain scenery, the splendid forests, the surprises of the way (hke the first view of the valley from Inspiration Point), and that the Mariposa big trees would be farther off the route than they are now. The traveller sees them now by driving eight miles from Wawona, the end of the first day's staging. But the romance for the few there is in staging will have to give way to the greater comfort of the many by TIIR YOSF.MITR POME. SOME WONDERS BY THE WAY. 153 rail. The railw^ay will do no more injury to the Yo- semite than it has done to Niagara, and, in fact, will be the means of immensely increasing the comfort of the visitor's stay there, besides enabhng tens of thou- sands of people to see it who cannot stand the fatigue of the stage ride over the present road. The Yosemite will remain as it is. The simphcity of its grand feat- ures is unassailable so long as the Grovernment pro- tects the forests that smTound it and the streams that pour into it. The visitor who goes there by rail will find plenty of adventure for days and weeks in follow- ing the mountain trails, ascending to the great points of view, exploring the canons, or climbing so as to command the vast stretch of the snowy Sierras. Or, if he is not inclined to adventure, the valley itself will satisfy his highest imaginative flights of the sublime in rock masses and perpendicular ledges, and his sense of beauty in the graceful water-falls, rainbow colors, and exquisite lines of domes and pinnacles. It is in the grouping of objects of subhmity and beauty that the Yosemite excels. The narrow valley, with its gigantic walls, which vary in every change of the point of view, lends itself to the most astonishing scenic effects, and these the photograph has repro- duced, so that the world is famihar with the striking features of the valley, and has a tolerably correct idea of the sublimity of some of these features. What the photograph cannot do is to give an impression of the unique grouping, of the majesty, and at times crush- ing weight upon the mind of the forms and masses, of the atmospheric splendor and illusion, and of the total value of such an assemblage of wonders. The level surface of the peaceful, park-like valley has much 15i OUR ITALY. to do with the impression. The effect of El Capitan, seen across a meadow and rising from a beautiful park, is much greater than if it were encountered in a savage mountain gorge. The traveller may have seen elsewhere greater water -falls, and domes and spires of rock as surprising, but he has nowhere else seen such a combination as this. He may be fortified against surprise by the photographs he has seen and the reports of word painters, but he will not escape (say, at Inspiration Point, or Artist Point, or other lookouts), a quickening of the pulse and an elation which is physical as well as mental, in the sight of such unexpected sublimity and beauty. And famil- iarity will scarcely take off the edge of his delight, so varied are the effects in the passing hours and chang- ing hglits. The Rainbow Fall, when water is abun- dant, is exceedingly impressive as well as beautiful. Seen from the carriage road, pouring out of the sky overhead, it gives a sense of power, and at the proper hour before sunset, when the vast mass of leaping, foaming water is shot through with the colors of the spectrum, it is one of the most exquisite sights the world can offer; the elemental forces are overwhelm- ing, but the lovehness is engaging. One turns from this to the noble mass of El Capitan with a shock of surprise, however often it. may have been seen. This is the hour also, in the time of high -water, to see the reflection of the Yosemite Falls. As a spectacle it is infinitely finer than anything at Mirror Lake, and is unique in its way. To behold this beautiful series of falls, flowing down out of the blue sky above, and flowing up out of an equally blue sky in the depths of the earth, is a sight not to be forgotten. SOME WONDEKS BY THE WAY. 155 And when the ohserver passes from these displays to the sight of the aerial domes in the npi^er end of the valley, new wonders opening at every tnrn of the for- est road, his excitement has little chance of subsiding : he may be even a little oppressed. The valley, so ver- COAST OF MONTEREY. dant and friendly with grass and trees and flowers, is so narrow compared with the height of its perj)endic- iilar guardian walls, and this httle secluded spot is so imprisoned in the gigantic mountains, that man has a feeling of helplessness in it. This powerlessness in the presence of elemental forces was heightened by the deluge of water. There had been an immense fall of snow the winter before, the Merced was a raging torrent, overflowing its banks, and from every ledge poured a miniature cataract. Noble simplicity is the key-note to the sceneiy of the Yosemite, and this is enhanced by the park -like appearance of the floor of the valley. The stems of the fine trees are in harmony with the perpendicular lines, and their foliage adds the necessary contrast to the gray rock masses. In order to preserve these for- 150 OUK ITALY. est -trees, the iinderbriisli, wliicli is liable to make a conflagration in a dry season, should be removed gen- erally, and the view of the great features be left unim- peded. The minor caiions and the trails are, of course, left as much as possible to the riot of vegetation. The State Commission, which labors under the disadvan- tages of getting its supplies from a Legislature that does not appreciate the value of the Yosemite to Cali- fornia, has developed the trails judiciously, and estab- lished a model trail service. The Yosemite, it need not be said, is a great attraction to tourists from all parts of the world; it is the interest of the State, therefore, to increase their number by improving the CYPRESS POINT. facilities for reaching it, and by resolutely preserving all the surrounding region from ravage. This is as true of the Mariposa big tree region as of the valley. Indeed, more care is needed for the SOME WONDERS BY THE WAY. 157 trees than for the great chasm, for man cannot per- manently mjure the distmctive features of the latter, while the destruction of the sequoias will be an irrepa- rable loss to the State and to the world. The Sequoia gig anted differs in leaf, and size and shape of cone, from NEAR SEAL HOCK the great Sequoia semper virens on the coast near Santa Cruz; neither can be spared. The Mariposa trees, scat- tered along on a mountain ridge 6500 feet above the sea, do not easily obtain their victory, for they are a part of a magnificent forest of other growths, among which the noble sugar -pine is conspicuous for its enormous size and graceful vigor. The sequoias dom- inate among splendid rivals ouly by a magnitude that has no comparison elsewhere in the world. I think no one can anticipate the effect that one of these mon- archs will have upon him. He has read that a coach and six can drive through one of the trees tliat is 158 OUR ITALY. standing; that another is thirty- three feet in diam- eter, and that its vast stem, 350 feet high, is crowned with a mass of fohage that seems to brush against the sky. He might be prepared for a tower 100 feet in circumference, and even 400 feet high, standing upon a level plain ; but this living growth is quite another affair. Each tree is an individual, and has a personal character. No man can stand in the presence of one of these giants without a new sense of the age of the world and the insignificant span of one human hfe; but he is also overpowered by a sense of some gigantic personality. It does not relieve him to think of this as the Methuselah of trees, or to call it by the name of some great poet or captain. The awe the tree in- spires is of itself. As one lies and looks up at the enormous bulk, it seems not so much the bulk, so lightly is it carried, as the spirit of the tree — the elastic vigor, the patience, the endurance of storm and change, the confident might, and the soaring, al- most contemptuous pride, that overwhelm the puny spectator. It is just because man can measure him- self, his httleness, his brevity of existence, with this growth out of the earth, that he is more personally impressed by it than he might be by the mere vari- ation in the contour of the globe which is called a mountain. The imagination makes a plausible effort to comi)rehend it, and is foiled. No ; clearly it is not mere size that impresses one ; it is the dignity, the character in the tree, the authority and power of an- tiquity. Side by side of these venerable forms are young sequoias, great trees themselves, that have only just begun their millennial career — trees that will, if spared, j)erpetuate to remote ages this race of giants, XV -^ V ^^ n ^ //MWH-^iiSisn \*' "iit#jiiiiiiiiii iiiiiniiiii Miii'KsP n M'i SOME WONDERS BY THE WAY. 161 and in two to four thousand years from now take the place of their great-grandfathers, who are sinking un- der the W'eight of years, and one by one measuring their length on the earth. The transition from the suhhme to the exquisitely lovely in nature can nowhere else be made with more celerity than from the Sierras to the coast at Monte- rey; California abounds in such contrasts and sur- prises. After the great stirring of the emotions by the Yosemite and the Mariposa, the Hotel del Monte Park and vicinity oifer repose, and make an appeal to the sense of beauty and refinement. Yet even here some- thing unique is again encountered. I do not refer to the extraordinary beauty of the giant live-oaks and the landscape-gardening about the hotel, w^hich have made Monterey famous the world over, but to the sea- beach drive of sixteen miles, which can scarcely be rivalled elsewhere either for marine loveliness or vari- ety of coast scenery. It has points like the ocean drive at Newport, but is altogether on a grander scale, and shows a more poetic union of shore and sea ; be- sides, it offers the curious and fascinating spectacles of the rocks inhabited by the sea -lions, and the Cy- press Point. These huge, uncouth creatures can be seen elsewhere, but probably nowhere else on this coast are they massed in greater niunbers. The trees of Cypress Point are unique, this species of cypress having been found nowhere else. The long, never- ceasing swell of the Pacific incessantly flows up the many crescent sand beaches, casting up shells of brill- iant hues, sea -weed, and kelp, which seems instinct with animal life, and flotsam from the far-off islands. But the rocks that lie off the shore, and the jagged 11 162 OUR ITALY. points that project in fanciful forms, break the even great swell, and send the waters, churned into spray and foam, into the air with a thousand hues in the sun. The shock of these sharp collisions mingles with the heavy ocean boom. Cypress Point is one of the most conspicuous of these projections, and its^ strange trees creep out upon the ragged ledges almost to the water's edge. These cy]^)resses are quite as in- stinct with indi\ddual hfe and quite as fantastic as any that Dore drew for his " Inferno." They are as gnarled and twisted as ohve- trees two centuries old, but their attitudes seem not only to show struggle with the elements, but agony in that struggle. The agony may be that of torture in the tempest, or of some fabled creatures fleeing and pursued, stretching out their long arms in terror, and fixed in that \\T.'ith- ing fear. They are creatiu'es of the sea quite as much as of the land, and they give to this lovely coast a strange charm and fascination. CHAPTER XYI. FASCINATIONS OF THE DESEET. — THE LAGUNA PUEBLO. The traveller to California by the Santa Fe route comes into the arid regions gradually, and finds each day a variety of objects of interest that ui3sets his conception of a monotonous desert land. If he chooses to break the continental journey midway, he can turn aside at Las Vegas to the Hot Springs. Here, at the head of a picturesque valley, is the Montezjuma Ho- tel, a luxurious and handsome house, 6767 feet above sea-level, a great surprise in the midst of the broken and somewhat savage New Mexican scenery. The low hills covered with pines and pihons, the romantic glens, and the wide \"iews from the elevations about the hotel, make it an attractive place ; and a great deal has been done, in the erection of bath-houses, ornamental gardening, and the grading of roads and walks, to make it a comfortable place. The latitude and the dryness of the atmosj)liere insure for the trav- eller from the North in our winter an agreeable recep- tion, and the elevation makes the spot in the summer a desirable resort from Southern heat. It is a sanita- rium as well as a pleasure resort. Tlie Hot Si)rings liave much the same character as the T<)plitz waters in Bohemia, and the saturated earth— the M'utterlacjer — furnishes the curative "mud baths" which are enjoyed at Marienbad and Carlsbad. The union of the climate, 164 OUE ITALY. wliicli is so favorable in diseases of the respiratory organs, with the waters, which do so much for rheu- matic .sufferers, gives a distinction to Las Vegas Hot Springs. This New Mexican air — there is none purer on the globe — is an enemy to hay-fever and malarial diseases. It was a wise enterprise to provide that those who wish to try its effi-cacy can do so at the Monte- zuma without giv-