USA > California > California gold book : first nugget, its discovery and discoverers, and some of the results proceeding therefrom > Part 27
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was placed under the control of the most successful real estate firm in San Francisco. In six months this firm had found purchasers, independent of the exer- tions of Mrs. Buckingham, to the extent of $8,000 to $10,000, and at a cost to her of the latter sum. Then, as her son had assumed the management of the home vineyard and orchard, Mrs. Buckingham resumed con- trol of her investment, and up to this writing has found desirable purchasers for enough to pay off her indebtedness of $100,000, and leave her nearly 400 acres and $25,000 as profit.
A word here as to T. Hugh Buckingham. There can be no question of his transcendant natural ability, but nearly all his experience in fruit culture has been under the instruction and supervision of his gifted and en- ergetic mother. Not long ago he was selected by the Fruit Growers' Union to spend a season in the Chicago mar- ket, superintending and directing the great interests of the Union, and gathering data for the use of the Union in the future. Mr. A. T. Hatch, the best authority on fruits in California, which is exactly the same as saying the best in the world, has said that the knowledge and judgment of young Buckingham in regard to fruits was simply phenomenal, and he would rather depend upon his judgment than that of any older man in the State.
The experience of Miss Sarah A. Bates, who owns forty-two acres of the most intelligently cultivated orchard and vineyard in Vaca valley, fits in here admirably. Miss Bates was born and educated in New York City, and spent several years in acquiring pro- ficiency in etching and other art matters in Chicago. She is thoroughly cultured and refined. She bought
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her land of Mrs. Buckingham, adjoining eighty acres belonging to a relative. While the trees and vines on her own purchase were growing and required only a part of her attention, she found employment in her art in San Francisco, and earned enough to pay for a stylish span of horses and carriage. Now she oversees and directs all the work on these one hundred and twenty acres, and there is not a blade of grass visible in the orchards, and not likely any under the leaves and clusters of grapes in the vineyard. She is not far past twenty years of age, but the cultivation of the fields under her control are as superior to some owned and managed by men in the same neighborhood as can well be conceived.
We can add the experience of Mrs. Harriet Barrows, who purchased twenty acres of land near Mrs. Buck- ingham. She had no money left for trees, nor for the necessary cultivation of them till they came into bear- ing. She was a thorough housekeeper and a very superior cook. Her services in this direction readily commanded thirty dollars per month. Then, mort- gaging her land, she bought the necessary trees, and was sadly disappointed to find nine-tenths of all of them worthless. There was no repining. It simply meant a season more of servitude at the kitchen range, and the fruition of brilliant hopes a little longer deferred. It was two years before she could pronounce herself independent. Now she has a highly improved home paid for, her orchards and vines in bearing, and her income last season amounted to nearly $3,000, or about eight per cent. on a $2,000 per acre valuation of her land, besides her support while the crop was grow- ing and being harvested.
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We do not propose contending that all other females can do as well as these ladies have done. These have had the advice and encouragement of Mrs. Bucking- ham. They had bought their land from her and on her advice. She silently guaranteed to herself, saying nothing to them, that they should succeed. Failure of any of those who purchased land of her would distress her as profoundly as it would them. Itis a matter of principle and pride with her that the boundaries of land she has owned can be fixed by the passerby with the utmost certainty, having no other guide than the superiority of the culture, and the air of generous prosperity pervading every visible interest. There are other well kept orchards and vineyards in Vaca and Laguna valleys. There are none that will compare with those superintended by these three ladies. It is not that male fruit growers have no faith in high cul- ture, and do not know the profit of having everything in apple-pie order. But the fact remains that the leaves are still green on the trees of the orchards well cul- tivated, when they have gone to sleep for the winter where wild oats and grasses are sucking the vitality from the soil.
In looks and bearing, Mrs. Buckingham is still young. We have briefly, too briefly, glanced at her valuable work. She is wonderfully capable of putting her experience in such form as will render it of use to members of her own sex, and not less to men who are ambitious to become model fruit growers. As the fruit interest enlarges, as it must enlarge, when all the millions of people in America have a chance to share in the glorious fruit products of California, such a work from the pen of Mrs. Buckingham would be as valuable
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to the many as her example has been to those few who have had the privilege of examining her home work. While work in the mines proves too arduous for women, and is an industry which must be prosecuted by men, requiring the strongest physical force, the development of the finer artistic pursuits, resulting from the dis- covery of precious metals, has shown women to be equal, if not superior, in all the avenues for the develop- ment of the vast resources of this wonderful country.
CHAPTER XVII.
IRRIGATION.
The grandest discovery which has been made in California has been the scientifie application of water to everything which germinates in her prolific soil. The accepted idea the world over has been that water would wet the earth, but that it contained grand fertilizing qualities was outside of belief. The old padres had erude notions in regard to it, and crude methods for its application ; but generally the operation was to drench the ground until it was as full of water as it would be after the heaviest and most prolonged down- pour from the clouds. They obtained results, though as inferior to those now produced as the areas treated were smaller than the vast acreage which the American culturists have reclaimed from arid wastes.
The term "grandest discovery " is used advisedly. The discovery of gold constituted an epoch in the life of civilization, progress and prosperity. The people of this generation are scarely capable of appreciating the magnitude of its influence. The yellow metal spread out over the earth, revivifying the hopes and
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aspirations of every living soul. It made achieve- ments possible which trench closely upon the miraculous. It unchained the imprisoned ambi- tions, and sent the life current throbbing through every vein of people so grand that they assimilate the likeness of gods, knowing good from evil. It made wars next to impossible by enabling man to construct engines of destruction so marvelously perfect that enlightened nations are afraid to combat, lest they become extinct on the map of the world. It multiplied universities and made civilized countries great houses of learning, broad and comprehensive as their uttermost limits. It set up monuments everywhere, marking the line between right and wrong. It emphasized the slow growth of the ages by strides forward as brilliant as flashes of light. It has enabled men and women to know their strength, and intelligently perform the duties with which they were burdened by the Creator, and the performance of which it has caused to become the loftiest human pleasures possible this side of heaven. These are some of the grand results which have evolved from the insignificant yellow nugget picked up by Marshall in a California canyon, and tested by Jennie Wimmer in a kettle of boiling soap on the 19th day of January, 1848.
Then what was left for irrigation? The old maps designated the " Great American Desert." Its eastern limit started at a line running north from the Indian Territory, and cleaving Kansas, Nebraska, and the grand principality now called the Dacotas. It included almost every foot of soil from this line to the setting sun. This vast area was practically worthless. The Mormons proved it possible for some good thing to
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come out of Nazareth by reclaiming arid spots about the confines of the great Salt Lake, and making them to bloom and bear as beautiful and generously as the Garden of Eden or the Valley of the Nile. Still, until the results produced by California irrigationists, the majority of the acres comprised in the original Great American Desert were deemed fit only for the occupa- tion of coyotes, jack-rabbits and reptiles, and such human beings as could subsist upon these. Now the possibility of reclaiming these broad plains is recog- nized, and irrigation must be given the credit of making habitable as great an area as that which has been given over to civilization and Christianity, up to this date by the grand discovery made by Columbus.
More than that. A tremendous acreage, in all the older States, had become barren, and had been turned out to recuperate by the slow processes of nature. The deeper the soil and the more thorough the tillage the less dependent is the husbandman upon water at the times when it most influences the fruiting of cereals, vines and trees. But in most of the land, in the Eastern and Southern States, the soil was never abundant, and the elements necessary for satisfactory returns have been drawn from the earth by planting it to the same things year in and year out. Exactly what there is in water to revive the land and increase its fertility is a mystery. When it is known why the same plat of ground will produce a sugar beet, a lemon, orange, and turpentine pine, it may be possible to formulate a theory approaching correctness. A present it is sufficient to know that irrigation, intelli- gently applied, gives returns unknown where the sole dependence is upon precipitation from the clouds,
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no matter how regular and abundant that may be. That is proved by California experience as it has been nowhere else. The discovery of this fact, when and how to apply water, will make its way east. It will not travel as fast as did the blessings from the placer canyons and the gold-bearing mountains, but it will eventually enable the tobacco planters of Virginia, the cotton planters of all the Southern States, and the sugar planter of Louisiana, to reckon with absolute certainty on a crop every year, instead of once in awhile as now ; because, from storage reservoirs, they will give their crops drink when it is necessary to vitality, and is withheld by the clouds. The same will be true of the fields, gardens and orchards in the East, and in the more fortunate Western States. Water is king, crowned by the California horticulturist and vineyardist, and will be introduced to all parts of America, and recognized as the most generous monarch the world has ever seen.
One of the most important irrigation enterprises in the State is that of the Crocker-Huffman Land and Water Company, in Merced county, one hundred and fifty miles south of San Francisco. Merced is the largest town in the county, and the first house in the place was erected after the Southern Pacific railroad reached there on its way to Los Angeles in 1872. It has three prosperous banks, three influential newspa- pers, five well-supported churches, excellent schools, gas, and the finest water-works of any town in the State. The water is brought from Lake Yosemite in a sixteen inch pipe, and under such pressure that a stream of water can be thrown forty feet above the top of the highest house. It is in such abundant sup-
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ply that no resident will ever be stinted in its use. Merced is surrounded by the finest of fruit lands, and the varieties to which these are adapted comprise nearly all the deciduous and citrus fruits grown in the State. Add to these, walnuts, almonds, table, wine and raisin grapes, and every variety of small fruits and vegetables, and a fair estimate may be made of what the soil of Merced county is good for. No region in the State has a better reputation for producing immense crops of cereals. In most of the county wheat, barley and oats were grown without irrigation, though the annual rainfall does not average more than ten inches, sometimes reaching twenty inches during the year. But citrus and deciduous fruits required irriga- tion, and these are the great wealth and comfort producers which make it possible for a large family to subsist luxuriously on ten acres of California land, and begin to lay aside a nice surplus in the savings bank.
As mentioned, the little city of Merced is a prosper ous tribute to the community building influences of the Southern Pacific management. Two other towns in the county, Volta and Los Banos, owe their exist- ence to the policy of the Southern Pacific Company of building branches and extensions ahead of, and as an inducement to, the formation of productive settlements. In many respects Merced county is to be envied, and in none more than in the fact that Col. Charles F. Crocker, vice-president of the Southern Pacific Com- pany, has large landed interests there. Colonel Crocker is a thorough railroad manager, and does not care to divide his energies on the details of other great enter- prises. But he appreciates the powerful effect rapidly growing and highly prosperous communities have upon
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the fortunes of a transportation company, and possesses that quality of a great general which enables him to select his aids with unmistaking judgment. Associat- ing with himself Mr. C. H. Huffman, long identified with land interests in Merced county, the plan was consummated for tapping the Merced river, and by means of one of the most complete and costly canals in the country, conveying an immense volume of water for twenty-seven miles to Yosemite lake, and there storing it for distribution as wanted to all the lands owned by the Crocker-Huffman Land and Water Com- pany. Over two millions of dollars were expended on this enterprise, and a constant supply of sufficient water to thoroughly irrigate nearly a million acres of land is assured. It is with the addition of plenty of surface water for irrigation that it is made possible for a thousand industrious people in California to live luxuriously on the products of their labor, where only one person could barely exist without. The grand dis- coverers of miracles in California have proved this wonderful fact, time and time again, during the last twenty years, and this is what the Crocker-Huffman Land and Water Company has accomplished in pros- perous and progressive Merced county. The Rotter- dam Colony, the British Colony, the El Capitan Colony, and other thriving and rapidly growing communities, are bearing marked testimony to the wisdom and patriotism which produces such philanthropic and remunerative works as this, and which have their counterparts, on a smaller scale, in every part of Cali- fornia. The owners of almost countless acres are becoming the direct benefactors of the race, and there are only a few in all the world who would deny them
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any part of the munificent reward which the great transformation returns to them. They are dispensing the "greatest good to the greatest number," and to do that has been the soulful aspiration of the best people who have imprinted their individuality on all the ages of the world. In this case it is said that more actual settlers purchased homes in the Crocker-Huffman Land and Water Company Colony tracts during the last three months of 1892 than elsewhere in all the great and attractive San Joaquin valley.
There is no question that the men deserving most credit are those who are doing most for the develop- ment of California, and it matters little to the general public if their efforts bring them great personal profit. We have been told that the man possessing more than 640 acres of land, regardless of how he obtained it or what it cost him, should be taken to some secluded place and choked until he surrendered all in excess of a mile square. When it is remembered that ten acres in California fruits is ample for the support of a large family in comfort, the position would seem to be well taken. But there is much to be said on the other side. Several gentlemen in California count their acres by the thousand, and some by the hundred thousand. Very much of this land, without water, was poor property at twelve and a half cents an acre. It formed a poor sheep range for a portion of the year. A family could not have made a support on a thousand acres of it. With water, ten acres would be sufficient, and it would be worth, unimproved, from $50 to $300 an acre. No ordinary farmer would dare attempt the expense of bringing water from the mountains, even had he the money, nor could a thousand small farmers
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agree upon a method by which water could be fur- nished to each as wanted. The owner of a great ranch, thousands of square miles in extent, alone would be justified in undertaking such a work, and, as a matter of fact, the world is indebted to these great land owners for the results obtained from irrigation. Mil- lions of dollars had to be expended before the lands in Fresno, Kern and Los Angeles, San Bernardino and San Diego counties could be expected to produce moderately, to say nothing of the immense quantities of raisins, oranges, lemons, olives, and other products which load the trains for the East, and are increasing in quantity every day. It was fortunate for California, and fortunate for the thousands who will find small, but prosperous homes there, that so much of these - lands was in the hands of so few men.
Take the San Gabriel valley as an Illustration. A few a years ago a considerable part of it passed into the hands of E. J. Baldwin, known the world over as a man who "can keep a hotel," and to Californians as enterprising and thorough in everything he undertakes. He had purchased the Santa Anita, San Francisquito, La Merced, La Puente, Filipe Lugo, Potrero Grande, Cienega and Potrero Chico ranchos. These aggre- gated over 52,000 acres, and had no improvements of importance. In his usual thorough manner he com- menced to improve them. It would be interesting to follow him through the grand work. It is not neces- sary. Thousands upon thousands of trees were planted, miles of which were locust, poplar, mulberry, eucalyp- tus, pine and cedar, for shades along the broad ave- nues. These are now large trees, and most of them were started from the seed. A large area was planted
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to oranges, and then began the search for water. Large amounts were spent in boring for artesian water, and a number of flowing wells were obtained. A reservoir covering seven acres was built near the cot- tage of Santa Anita, and therein water was stored for distribution. This would hold a small amount com- pared with what would be needed on the whole body of land. Other reservoirs were constructed convenient to the lands they are to supply with water. Mr. Baldwin has an irrigation system of his own, and insists that it is more economical and in every way better than building costly dams across canyons in the mountains. Briefly, he would have the owner of a tract of land construct his own storage reservoir. It will not be a costly affair, and will be immensely more satisfactory to the owner than depending upon a water company and being compelled to take his water only when it suits their convenience. The reservoirs constructed by Mr. Baldwin are as perfect as human skill can make them. From there water is conveyed to all parts of the estate. The large number of artesian wells, generous as is their flow, would not furnish the supply necessary. High up the mountain side, on the edge of a canyon, tunnels were run into the rock until water was struck, and this is conveyed in iron pipes to the reservoirs, and makes the supply more than suffi- cient to irrigate all the lands at present under cultiva- tion. As none of it is conveyed in open flumes or ditches, the loss by evaporation is insignificant, and the waste is nominal.
Borings have been made over other portions of the estate, and a certainty of water can be guaranteed on almost every acre. The Santa Anita home ranch, con-
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sisting of 4,000 acres, and including the race track and training ground for Baldwin's blooded horses, is not for sale. Several fortunes of good size have been expended in beautifying that, and it is as lovely as a morning dream, and is possessed of every luxury and convenience. Some years ago, when the Santa Anita ranch was the only portion of the estate producing, Mr. Baldwin made an exhibit at the State agricultural fair, consisting of grape brandy, port wine, white wines and clarets from one to ten years old ; fourteen choice varieties of grapes, seven varieties of oranges, limes, lemons, pomegranates, Japanese persimmons, bananas, white and black figs, Hungarian prunes, plums, russet and Bartlett pears, nectarines, peaches, olives, hard and soft shell almonds, English walnuts, black walnuts, chestnuts, potatoes, asparagus and almost every variety of vegetables; white and yellow corn, and the famous Egyptian corn; four kinds of sugar cane, tobacco and Australian wheat, chevalier and common barley, white oats, rye, flax, hops, cotton, castor beans, and enough other products to show the soil was adapted to the growth of any article desired.
In connection with the ranch is a gilt-edge dairy, and 150 cows-choice Devon and graded -- are fed and milked. The dairy and stock ranch covers 8,650 acres and 4,000 head of cattle and 20,000 head of sheep are kept in stock. The latter are herded upon the hill-sides and on the fields after harvest.
Mr. Baldwin is very proud of his thoroughbred racers, and every care is bestowed upon them. Besides those which have made a record astonishing to racing men, thirty or forty colts are now in training, and some of them will prove record breakers.
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Mr. Baldwin has determined to do all he can to enhance the reputation of California wines and brandies. The grapes grown for wine are the choicest, and those which have been proved by use. The products of his winery have an excellent name. He sells no brandy until it is five years old, and has in stock 140,000 gallons made between 1874 and 1890. During that time he made about 20,000 gallons of choice wines of different varieties each year. Since 1889 no brandy has been distilled, and the output of wines has averaged 100,000 gallons per year.
The orange crop from these ranches is enormous, but none of it reaches the Eastern market. The entire product is sold in British Columbia and in the States and Territories on the Pacific coast. Some of the orange trees are near twenty years old, and are very prolific. In 1875 Mr. Baldwin paid $7.00 each for orange trees and the same kind can be had for 50 cents now. In 1891 he refused $1,500 per acre for a por- tion of his crop, the packer to take the oranges from the trees. He gathered them himself and netted over $1,800 per acre from the same trees.
Corroborative of our statement that it was fortunate for the Nation and the people that the lands requiring irrigation were held in large bodies by men who had to supply them with water in self-defense, the fact that three thousand persons now subsist in comfort, and even luxury, on lands which were barren when Mr. Baldwin obtained their ownership, is in evidence. Furthermore he has about one hundred renters, and a small army of employes. The acreage of deciduous fruits has been greatly increased, and this year a packery and cannery will be added, to the other important
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industries at Arcadia, which owe their inception to the enterprise of E. J. Baldwin.
Mr. H. A. Unruh, Arcadia, California, is the manager of the Baldwin estate. He is an ex-soldier. having enlisted from Indiana when sixteen years old, and spent nine months of the war in Libby and other prisons of the South. That did not discourage him from re-enlisting, and serving to the end of the war. In 1866 he came to California, and was in the service of the Central Pacific Railroad Company for some time. That proved an excellent training for the employment with Mr. Baldwin, in which he has been engaged since 1879, now having general supervision of his immense interests. At this time he is specially interested in placing industrious persons on the unim- proved lands of Mr. Baldwin, and upon terms most generous to the home-seeker, who is advised to take a receipt for the money paid for his passage to California, which will be received as cash in payment for lands. Four railroads traverse these lands, the Southern Pacific, Santa Fe, Rapid Transit and Terminal, the latter intending to continue to Salt Lake. The Santa Fe and Rapid Transit have stations at Arcadia, the location of the Oakwood hotel.
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