Glimpses of Three Coasts

by Helen Hunt Jackson

Then came in a new set of owners. From the north and from the interior poured in the thriftier sheep men, with big flocks; and for a few years the wide belt of good pasturage land along the coast was chiefly a sheep country.

Slowly farmers followed; settling, in the beginning, around town centres such as Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, Ventura. Grains and vegetables were grown for a resource when cattle and sheep should fail. Cows needed water all the year round; corn only a few months. A wheat-field might get time to ripen in a year when by reason of a drought a herd of cattle would die.

Thus the destiny of the country steadily went on toward its fulfilling, because the inexorable logic of the situation forced itself into the minds of the population. From grains and vegetables to fruits was a short and natural step, in the balmy air, under the sunny sky, and with the traditions and relics of the old friars' opulent fruit growths lingering all through the land. Each palm, orange-tree, and vineyard left on the old mission sites was a way-signal to the new peoples; mute, yet so eloquent, the wonder is that so many years should have elapsed before the road began to be thronged.

Such, in brief, is the chronicle of the development of South California's outdoor industries down to the present time; of the successions through which the country has been making ready to become what it will surely be, the Garden of the world,—a garden with which no other country can vie; a garden in which will grow, side by side, the grape and the pumpkin, the pear and the orange, the olive and the apple, the strawberry and the lemon, Indian corn and the banana, wheat and the guava.

The leading position which the fruit interest will ultimately take has been reached only in Los Angeles County. There the four chief industries, ranged according to their relative importance, stand as follows: Fruit, grain, wool, stock, and dairy. This county may be said to be pre-eminently the garden of the Garden. No other of the five counties can compete with it. Its fruit harvest is nearly unintermitted all the year round. The main orange crop ripens from January to May, though oranges hang on the trees all the year. The lemon, lime, and citron ripen and hang, like the orange. Apricots, pears, peaches, nectarines, strawberries, currants, and figs are plentiful in June; apples, pears, peaches, during July and August. Late in July grapes begin, and last till January. September is the best month of all, having grapes, peaches, pomegranates, walnuts, almonds, and a second crop of figs. From late in August till Christmas, the vintage does not cease.

The county has a sea-coast line of one hundred miles, and contains three millions of acres; two thirds mountain and desert, the remaining million good pasturage and tillable land. What is known as the great Los Angeles valley has an area of about sixty miles in length by thirty in width, and contains the three rivers of the county,—the Los Angeles, the Santa Ana, and the San Gabriel. Every drop of the water of these rivers and of the numberless little springs and streams ministering to their system is owned, rated, utilized, and, one might almost add, wrangled over. The chapters of these water litigations are many and full; and it behooves every new settler in the county to inform himself on that question first of all, and thoroughly.

In the Los Angeles valley lie several lesser valleys, fertile and beautiful; most notable of these, the San Gabriel valley, where was the site of the old San Gabriel Mission, twelve miles east of the town of Los Angeles. This valley is now taken up in large ranches, or in colonies of settlers banded together for mutual help and security in matter of water rights. This colony feature is daily becoming more and more an important one in the development of the whole country. Small individual proprietors cannot usually afford the purchase of sufficient water to make horticultural enterprises successful or safe. The incorporated colony, therefore, offers advantages to large numbers of settlers of a class that could not otherwise get foothold in the country,—the men of comparatively small means, who expect to work with their hands and await patiently the slow growth of moderate fortunes,—a most useful and abiding class, making a solid basis for prosperity. Some of the best results in South California have already been attained in colonies of this sort, such as Anaheim, Riverside, and Pasadena. The method is regarded with increasing favor. It is a rule of give and take, which works equally well for both country and settlers.

The South California statistics of fruits, grain, wool, honey, etc., read more like fancy than like fact, and are not readily believed by one unacquainted with the country. The only way to get a real comprehension and intelligent acceptance of them is to study them on the ground. By a single visit to a great ranch one is more enlightened than he would be by committing to memory scores of Equalization Board Reports. One of the very best, if not the best, for this purpose is Baldwin's ranch, in the San Gabriel valley. It includes a large part of the old lands of the San Gabriel Mission, and is a principality in itself.

There are over a hundred men on its pay-roll, which averages $4,000 a month. Another $4,000 does not more than meet its running expenses. It has $6,000 worth of machinery for its grain harvests alone. It has a dairy of forty cows, Jersey and Durham; one hundred and twenty work-horses and mules, and fifty thoroughbreds.

It is divided into four distinct estates: the Santa Anita, of 16,000 acres; Puente, 18,000; Merced, 20,000; and the Potrero, 25,000. The Puente and Merced are sheep ranches, and have 20,000 sheep on them. The Potrero is rented out to small farmers. The Santa Anita is the home estate. On it are the homes of the family and of the laborers. It has fifteen hundred acres of oak grove, four thousand acres in grain, five hundred in grass for hay, one hundred and fifty in orange orchards, fifty of almond trees, sixty of walnuts, twenty-five of pears, fifty of peaches, twenty of lemons, and five hundred in vines; also small orchards of chestnuts, hazel-nuts, and apricots; and thousands of acres of good pasturage.