SUGAR FROM THE SOIL—THE BEET SUGAR FACTORY AT OXNARD.
Some years ago the books of Charles Nordhoff, correspondent and journalistic freelance, were widely read, largely because he had the gift of seeing and of making others see through his words with his eyes. His letters to eastern publications were filled with his vivid pictures of this southland country. In the snug Ojai valley, close by the Coast Line, where now a town bears his name, he came and made his home for many years. Here, beautifully framed by rugged mountains, is one of Nature’s sanitariums where crowds of health seekers come annually to enjoy the dry air, cooled to reasonable comfort by the nearness to the sea. Not far away, traveling by the direct Coast Line from Los Angeles, is Oxnard, site of a beet-sugar factory that sweetly influences the freight shipments with its large annual output of the finest sugar. Something like 23,000 tons or 46,000,000 pounds of sugar are turned out here annually. In the regular season over 2,000 tons of beets are handled daily.
ANCIENT DATE PALMS AT VENTURA, AND THE PROTECTING LODGE BUILT BY DAUGHTERS OF THE GOLDEN WEST
THE MISSION SAN BUENAVENTURA ESTABLISHED 1782
Walnuts, olives, oranges, beet-sugar and beans are the notable features of orchard and field in the region about San Buenaventura. The old mission, in excellent preservation, established in 1782, is still used as the parish church for that region. All the way from here to Santa Barbara and beyond, the traveler is continuously under the spell of the sea, for the track skirts the coast upon the bluff high above the booming surf, by ever-changing pictures of clouds and sea and sky, with an occasional steamer or sailing craft to give them life. Along here is Carpinteria, an old Spanish settlement, which possesses among its features of interest, an ancient trellised grape vine, nearly three feet in diameter at its base. At Summerland there is a veritable forest of oil derricks stretching along the beach, many of them in the surf and even at sea far beyond the low tide mark.
THIS IS THE LARGEST GRAPEVINE IN THE WORLD—SIXTY YEARS OLD—TEN TONS OF GRAPES IS ITS RECORD CROP