Our Italy

by Charles Dudley Warner

SOME DETAILS OF THE WONDERFUL DEVELOPMENT.

It is not the purpose of this volume to describe Southern California. That has been thoroughly done; and details, with figures and pictures in regard to every town and settlement, will be forthcoming on application, 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 California by its productions, should be mentioned. The beautiful antelope plains and the Kern Valley (where land is still cheap and very productive) should not be overlooked. The splendid San Joaquin Valley is already speaking 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 marvellous capacity, capable of sustaining a dense population. It is cooler in winter than Southern California, and the summers average much warmer. Owing to the greater heat, the fruits mature sooner. It is just now becoming celebrated for its raisins, which in quality are unexcelled; and its area, which can be well irrigated from the rivers and from the mountains on either side, seems capable of producing raisins enough to supply the world. 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 agricultural and 4,400,000 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 population 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. Whether 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 country. It is out of his experience that trees can grow so fast, and plantations in so short a time put on an appearance 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 bearing, he cannot believe that five or ten years before the whole region was a waste. When he enters a handsome village, with substantial buildings of brick, and perhaps of stone, with fine school-houses, banks, hotels, an opera-house, large packing-houses, and warehouses and shops of all sorts, with tasteful dwellings and lovely ornamented lawns, it is hard to understand 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.

A GRAPE-VINE, MONTECITO VALLEY, SANTA BARBARA.

San Bernardino is comparatively an old town. It was settled in 1853 by a colony of Mormons from Salt Lake. The remains of this colony, less than a hundred, still live here, and have a church like the other sects, but 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 representative in California. Until 1865 San Bernardino was merely a straggling settlement, and a point of distribution for Arizona. The discovery that a large part of the county was adapted to the orange and the vine, and the advent of the Santa Fé 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 products, 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 solid wall of masonry, 300 feet long and 60 feet high, curving towards the reservoir, creates an inland lake in the mountains holding water enough to irrigate 20,000 acres of land. This is conveyed to distributing reservoirs 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 mountain above), already a favorite resort for health and pleasure. The views from the plain of the picturesque foot-hills 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 valueless. It had a few settlers, but the town, which counts now about 2000 people, was only begun in 1887. It has many solid brick edifices and many pretty cottages on its gentle slopes and rounded hills, overlooked by the great mountains. The view from any point of vantage of orchards and vineyards and semi-tropical gardens, with the wide 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 Valley Reservoir. On a hill to the south of the town the Smiley Brothers, of Catskill fame, are building fine residences, and planting their 125 acres with fruit-trees and vines, evergreens, flowers, and semi-tropic shrubbery in a style of landscape-gardening that in three years at the furthest will make this spot one of the few great showplaces of the country. Behind their ridge is the San Mateo Cañon, 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 Madre 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 deciduous.

Riverside may without prejudice be regarded as the centre of the orange growth and trade. The railway shipments of oranges from Southern California in the season of 1890 aggregated about 2400 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 half was from Riverside. This has been, of course, greatly stimulated by the improved railroad facilities, among them the shortening of the time to Chicago by the Santa Fé 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 4500 car-loads. We are accustomed to discount all California estimates, but I think that no one yet has comprehended the amount to which the shipments to Eastern markets 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 reports of fruit-dealers, upon what I saw of the new planting all over the State in 1890, and upon the statistics of increase. Take Riverside as an example. In 1872 it was a poor sheep ranch. In 1880-81 it shipped 15 car-loads, or 4290 boxes, of oranges; the amount 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.

IRRIGATING AN ORCHARD.