USA > California > California of the South: Being a Complete Guide Book to Southern California > Part 13
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"There were papers and magazines to be read, and letters to be written. The mail came up twice a week from the town, fifteen miles away. The Invalid went fern-hunting, and, though it was late in the season for ferns, she was rewarded with some fine maiden-hair, and a few specimens of other kinds, as well as wet feet and many hurts and bruises in scrambling over the rocks. Fishing was quite the fashion. The stream abounds in small trout, which, fried to a brown crispness, made a good addition to the fare. . . .
" We exchanged visits with other camps, of which there were from twenty to thirty some of the time in the accessible parts of the canon, and thus made some very pleasant acquaintances. Two classes of people, I may say, come to the canon-residents of the towns, who take their summer's outing in this way, and invalids, who hope for benefit from the mountain air. There is not game
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enough to tempt the sportsmen, as in some of the neighboring canons. In one camp we found five young men from 'the States,' as old residents here say, suffering with affections of the lungs; in another, an elderly maiden from New England and a Kansas woman, each alone among strangers, seeking to get rid of a cough. A young physician with nervous prostration was here, the only one of the invalids not troubled with lungs or throat, and his gain in heaith was the most evident of any. . . .
"The more sturdy and ambitious ones think the season not com- plete unless they climb ' Old Baldy,' the highest peak in this part of the range. Few women undertake it, for it is a very rough, hard climb. The men generally make a three-days' trip of it, going the ten or twelve miles up the canon the first day, staying over night at a mining-camp at the foot of the mountain, making the ascent the second day, and returning to the camp at night, though some go to the summit the first day to have the pleasure of making a huge bonfire there at night, and of seeing the sun rise the next morning. Those who went in August could not stay long, for they could get no water; but in July there was still snow enough to quench their thirst, and give them a chance at snow-balling, too. 'Old Baldy ' is snow-crowned for nine or ten months of the year. . . .
"To get acquainted with the birds, no better place could be found than in the shade of a live-oak tree. Sitting there in the morning, we heard their chirps and tseeps-they do not sing at this season-with occasionally a sharper note as some bird discovered the intruder. They had not learned that a human being is to be feared, and would come quite within arms-length if we were very quiet. There were little fly-catchers of soft brown and ashy colors, wee hummingbirds, and gay yellow finches, like canaries in shape and size, though of a deeper yellow hue, and with round black caps on their heads. A sober-colored, ragged-looking fellow, perched on a branch, suddenly darted through the air, a flash of brightest hue; a big owl stared at us from a rock one evening; wild pigeons fluttered in and out of the bushes. It was too late in the summer for the glory of the wild flowers. We found only the dry stalks and seeds of many of the beauties that had been born to 'waste their sweetness on the desert air' in February and March. Then, if we could have been there, we should have seen the beautiful ' shooting-stars,' or wild cyclamens, which rival their sisters, the
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cultivated cyclamens, in beauty and fragrance; several varieties of lupines; blue and white larkspur; 'baby blue eyes' (nemophila) ; various kinds of mimulus; Indian pinks (castilleia) ; and others quite as pretty. I must not overlook the forget-me-nots, very deli- cate white flowers, and a coarser kind of a dull blue, growing rankly almost everywhere; or the orange-colored poppies, over which all the Eastern people 'rave.' For weeks these make brilliant patches of color in the valleys and on the hills, varying from pale yellow to deepest orange, the two sometimes shaded into each other in the same flower. Even as late as July we found a few very small, very pale ones in the canon. It is the eschscholtzia of Eastern gardens, but a small clump or border of them in a garden gives but a faint idea of the effect of acres of a glowing orange color.
"Still, in August we found the red and yellow columbine, just as it grows on New England hill-sides; gorgeous tiger-lilies; big yellow primroses, like the ones we know in the East, except that, in true California fashion, they grow much larger; the beautiful white clematis, climbing over the trees, hanging in graceful festoons and ropes from the branches, and filling the air with sweetness. Later, indeed, among the very last flowers that we found, were im- mortelles, golden-rod, delicate, large pink asters and small purple ones, and some others of the composite family. On almost every hill-side we saw the whitish stalks of the yucca, called here 'Span- ish dagger.' Going near, we found the ripening seed-pods, but early in June we should have seen the flowers in their glory. The taper- ing flower-stalk, from ten to twenty feet high, bears many panicles of bell-shaped, greenish-white blossoms. This flower-stalk is porous in texture, and sections of it make very convenient pin-cushions. The leaves, narrower than those of the Spanish bayonet proper, but tipped with sharp spines, have a saponaceous property, and are said to be used by the Mexicans instead of soap.
"The canon is a very dry place. Close to the stream as our camp was, the clothing, books, papers, etc., out-doors day and night, were never damp, and the earth a foot from the edge of the water seemed perfectly dry. .
"The rocks were nearly all bare, but sometimes we found them with a growth of lichens. There were dried-up mosses and ferns in the crevices, making us wish we might have been there in the spring, when they were fresh and green; but there is no such
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luxuriant growth of moss as is found in similar places in New England.
" We kept a ' thermometer report ' for a local paper, having our thermometer hung above the table in a convenient place for taking observations at meal-times. Ninety-two degrees was the highest temperature we had at noon, and forty-seven was the lowest at seven o'clock in the morning. These figures were exceptional, the usual range being from sixty to eighty. The coolest mornings we sat by a camp-fire until the sunshine reached our camp, when fire was no longer necessary. On the warmest days our favorite seats were the shadiest rocks very near the water. Four thousand feet above the ocean we thought the fogs that cover the valleys so much of the time would not reach us; but one morning at six o'clock the house- keeper came into the tent singing, 'When the mists have cleared away,' and we looked out upon a dense gray wall shutting us in on every side from even the nearest hills. Three hours later nothing remained of it but a few curling cloud-wreaths on the mountain- peaks. Several times the early risers looking down the canon saw the fog-bank coming up, but only once more did it reach us during the ten weeks and a half of our stay. It was the rainy season over to the east of us in Arizona, and sometimes our beautiful blue sky was made more beautiful by gray or white banks of cloud that rose above the mountains and floated over the canon, falling once in showers that astonished us, for the oldest inhabitant 'never saw rain at this time of the year.' . . .
" There are sycamores all through the canon, growing most abundantly in the ravines or little side canons where the brooks come down to join the larger stream. Their white trunks, twisted in fantastic forms, and the weird mistletoe drooping from the boughs in great bunches, make them the strangest-looking trees in the cañon. The mistletoe seems to prefer the sycamore, though it grows sometimes in the alders. Probably the live-oak, with its glossy, dark-green foliage and graceful shapes, is the prettiest tree. The California bay, or laurel, which may be called a tree from its size, though usually growing in bushy form, is beautiful in color, and is a favorite because of its fragrance. The children gathered wild cherries from a shrub that bears shining, prickly leaves; but the fruit, of about the size and color of some cultivated cherries, is mostly stone and skin. The low growth of shrubs that covers the
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gentler slopes of the mountains-the chaparral-is made up of the grease-wood, mountain-mahogany, buckthorn, cherry, manzanita, herba santa, or ' mountain balm,' from which a medicine is prepared for pulmonary affections, and a few others, the names of which we did not learn. Poison-oak grows luxuriantly in places, as some of the campers learned by painful experience, and is almost the only shrub that shows red leaves at the approach of autumn.
"Some of the young men found amusement in making canes of various woods. The manzanita has a red bark, almost black when dry, and very pretty when varnished. It is a little the most choice for canes, because it is so difficult to procure a straight one. The Mexicans have a saying to the effect that it is harder to find a straight manzanita than a perfect woman. It is one of the pretti- est shrubs on the mountain-slopes, growing in rounded, compact, bushy form, and having numerous small, very light-green leaves, contrasting well with the red bark. The mountain - mahogany makes good light-colored canes, the sap-wood being nearly white notwithstanding its name, and it takes a fine polish. Grease-wood is easily worked. The young physician carried away a large col- lection of canes, enough apparently to supply all his friends with souvenirs of the canon. The amateur artists find pieces of rock of proper size and shape for paper-weights, and paint on them 'bits' of falls, trees, sky, rocks, hills, with perhaps a tent or two, to have something characteristic of the place. Excursions to the favored spots where the finest yucca for pincushions grows are usually among the last ones taken by camping-parties before they 'break camp.' In September the place begins to have a lonesome look. Drearier than an empty house is a deserted camp with its pile of smoke-blackened rocks and bit of rusty pipe that made the camp- 'stove,' the cleared place where the tent stood, with perhaps a rustic chair or bed more or less dilapidated, the rubbish, in- cluding the old shoes, which gave out so surprisingly with the travel over the rocks, and 'the ubiquitous tin can ' and the names carved on the smooth alders, telling of somebody's skill with the jack-knife.
" By the last of the month everybody else had gone, so we must follow, though the Invalid wanted to stay till the fall rains came. Reluctantly she left the canon, looking back longingly all the way down at the rollicking stream and the tall trees with the blue, blue
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sky above them, the rugged mountain-slopes, and the beautiful, dreadful rocks."
Anaheim Township-Westminster, Santa Ana, and San Juan Townships.
Like an L from an old-fashioned house, these four town- ships extend southeast from the main body of the county. Santa Ana and San Juan Townships are bounded on the north by San Bernardino County. San Juan Township is bounded on the southeast by San Diego County. Thus we have Soledad Township, the northern part of Los Angeles County, bounded by Kern County and San Juan Town- ship, the southern part of the county reaching to San Diego County. These two boundaries are one hundred and twenty miles apart. All of these townships have the Pacific Ocean for their southwestern boundary. These contain an aggre- gate area of four hundred and fifty-seven thousand acres.
Like all the rest of Los Angeles County, there is in these four townships a wonderful diversity of products. An im- mense cornfield and a beautiful orange-grove can frequent- ly be found within a stone's throw of each other, while the apple and the pear, the lemon and the lime, the raisin-grape and the wine-grape, beets and pumpkins, barley and wheat, cattle and sheep, honey and butter, horses and poultry, pomegranates and figs, all unite to swell the income of the land-owner.
The centers of population in these townships are Ana- heim, Westminster, Orange, Tustin, Santa Ana, and San Juan-by-the-Sea.
ANAHEIM .- Anaheim is the oldest of these towns, and is known as the " Mother Colony." The following inter- esting description of the founding of this town is by Major B. C. Truman, and was first published in the New York " Times " :
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" One of the most interesting places in Southern California, or in fact in the world, that I have visited is Anaheim, about twenty- eight miles from the city of Los Angeles. Wine-making has been, is, and always will be, the leading industry of Anaheim. The light soil has been proved, by nearly thirty years of experience, to be . well adapted for the successful growth of the vine. Although Mr. Wetmore, who is very good authority generally, believes that the Berger will not do well in Anaheim, it is well known that the Mis- sion, Zinfandel, Black Malvoisie, Mataro, Trousseau, and Golden Chasselas, are as successful there as in any portion of the State.
" It was for the pursuit of this industry that Anaheim was first organized about thirty years ago, and I believe its establishment as a colony was one of the first subdivisions of large tracts of land and improvements by water systems in the State. It was projected in 1857 by a party of wealthy Germans of San Francisco, who con- ceived the happy idea of converting some portion of Los Angeles County into a collection of homes and vineyards for a certain num- ber of the industrious and deserving of their race, and at once formed themselves into an acting body with the title of the Los Angeles County Vineyard Association. After mature deliberation, the association resolved to employ a competent and proper person to select a site and make necessary arrangements for the purchase of a thousand acres of land somewhere between the city of Los Angeles and the sea, with a view to water, soil, and climate. The surveyor of the county was selected as superintendent, and was at once instructed regarding the general order of the original plan of the projectors, and empowered with authority and furnished with funds to erect a vineyard or a collection of vineyards, the details of the erection of said vineyards to be entirely according to his own taste, inasmuch as they should not fail to correspond, on the whole, with the plan proposed and agreed upon by the association. The site selected was a part of the Rancho San Juan Cajon de Santa Ana. The superintendent engaged himself at the work he had pro- posed to perform, and purchased eleven hundred acres of land from Don Juan Pacifico Ondiveras, and divided it into fifty lots of twenty acres each, reserving a portion in the center for streets and public buildings. Before the end of the year the plat had assumed a tangible shape. The entire site was fenced with willows, the bounda- ries of the twenty-acre lots were made and fenced, ditches were con-
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structed, and four hundred acres of vines were planted before the expiration of the second year. Eight acres in each lot had been successfully planted with grapes, leaving the balance (twelve acres) for agricultural purposes, pasture, etc. Toward the close of 1859 the superintendent had successfully carried out the plan of the asso- ciation at an expense of seventy thousand dollars. The final action then took place on the part of the society, which was to settle some German person upon each of the vineyards on the payment of four- teen hundred dollars, just one fiftieth of the aggregate cost of the whole, the selection of each vineyard to be made by drawing lots, each person to receive in addition to his vineyard a town-lot, leav- ing fourteen for public purposes. Two thirds of the entire plat were at once taken up, and gradually the whole number was con- verted into many little German homes, containing a happy and thriving community."
Anaheim, during these thirty years, has continued to be pre-eminently a vine-growing and wine-manufacturing town. There are now about fifty wineries in Anaheim and its im- mediate vicinity. The business of wine-making has always been in the hands of the German colonists, and they have made money steadily almost from the beginning. Many have grown rich. It is no credit to a man to say that he has made a fortune through speculation in real estate. It sim- ply means that he has gambled on the fluctuations in prop- erty and won, but when it can be said that a community has grown rich from the products of the land, then eulogies may be justly pronounced on both people and soil.
The residents of Anaheim have continued year after year constant in their work, and wholly unmindful of the boom and speculating fever of outside places.
Their homes were made comfortable, flowers were kept beautiful in their gardens, and the pepper-tree, the syca- more, and the acacia shaded their sidewalks, but there has not been the spirit of what is known as public improvement.
When the Southern Pacific Company wanted to give them the boon of a railroad, and asked for right of way
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and ground for a station in the center of the town, they answered : "No; we do not want our vineyards cut in two by a railroad."
" It will double the value of your property."
" Will it double the number of tons of grapes our vine- yards will produce ? We do not want to sell our vineyards, consequently, the increased valuation simply means in- creased taxation and not increased production." The rail- road skirted around the town, the station was located out- side of the town limits, and the German was happy.
Such has been the happy, quiet, prosperous life of the Anaheimer, but lately his equanimity has been seriously disturbed by the advent of another railroad. The Califor- nia Central now startles the Anaheim chicken from its roost.
The Yankee has stepped into the arena, and Anaheim, in spite of its original industrious citizens, bids fair to become a city. It is twenty-eight miles from Los Angeles, with which it is connected by the Southern Pacific Railroad. It now has a population of thirty-five hundred, and is growing rapidly.
Two miles from Anaheim is the prospective town of FULLERTON, named for Mr. George H. Fullerton, a Los Angeles capitalist. Fullerton is on the California Central Railroad, and in the midst of a rich territory. It contains the usual complement of hotels, churches, school-houses, and stores.
WESTMINSTER is eight miles southwest of Anaheim, toward the ocean. It was started as a Presbyterian town, and the following sketch, from the Anaheim "Gazette Pamphlet " of 1879, gives an excellent general idea of the place :
" Westminster was started as a colony enterprise, by the Rev. L. P. Webber, in the fall of 1871. He selected a tract of level land between Anaheim and the ocean, comprising about eight thousand
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acres, afterward enlarged to ten thousand acres, and endeavored to call together persons who would heartily co-operate in church, school, and social affairs, so as to get all the advantages of an old settlement from the beginning. After his death, in 1874, his work was continued, and the present status of the place is as follows:
"The original tract and addition is all sold and occupied in farms, mostly of forty acres each. The adjacent country has all been occupied, and a Westminster Township organized with a popu- lation estimated at about two thousand. There are four school- districts, viz., Westminster, Las Bolsas, Garden Grove, and Alami- tos. In the village are three neat church buildings, all complete and free from debt, which testify to the character of the people. They belong, respectively, to the Presbyterian, Methodist, and Con- gregational churches. Their spires can be seen from a long distance on the plain. In the village are also three stores of general mer- chandise, two smithies, one wagon-shop, one harness-shop, tin-shop, milliner, shoemaker, etc.
"About two hundred and fifty artesian wells supply abundance of pure, cool water for all purposes, including irrigation, and their number can be indefinitely increased. Probably no other section of the United States has so many flowing wells. This constitutes the distinctive feature of this section.
"Barley averages about twenty centals to the acre ; corn pro- duces from forty to one hundred bushels per acre, according to quality of land and care of cultivation ; potatoes are raised in large quantities, and are very profitable. The soil is a sandy loam, vary- ing from light to heavy, and very rich. The presence of alkali in the lower lands is an annoyance and an evil, but it has been dem- onstrated that cultivation and drainage will relieve this, the only drawback in the midst of other advantages. Stock, especially hogs, are profitably raised. Several packing-establishments are doing a large business, increasing yearly, in bacon, hamns, and lard. In this direction there is room for indefinite expansion, with sure profits to men who understand the business. Several large dairies supply butter to the surrounding towns and to Los Angeles. A vegetable- farm sends its products in every direction.
" Westminster makes no specialty of semi-tropical fruits, but lovers of trees, and of the profits of them, have an advantage here of making orchards, of apples especially, that will vie with the
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neighboring orange-groves in yearly money returns, with less out- lay and less delay. Our apples are already celebrated for good and keeping qualities, and the trees are very productive. Westminster nursery, exclusively for the northern fruits, supplies demands in this direction, and its trees have a well-known reputation for quality and growth. The few old bearing apple-trees here fully confirm all hopes of the health and profitableness of this branch of farming.
"The climate is all that could be desired, a refreshing sea-breeze tempering the heat of summer. The sea, five miles away, gives opportunity for daily baths."
ANAHEIM LANDING is four miles from Westminster and twelve miles from Anaheim. It is an interesting point for the lover of the ocean, and is also a place of considerable commercial importance. It is the ocean outlet for the prod- ucts of this neighborhood. There is here a wharf and ware- house. In the vicinity of Westminster raising corn and hogs is very profitable. Thomas Edwards, in one year, cleared above his expenses of living and all other expenses over ten thousand dollars off of two hundred acres of corn. Land here averages cheaper than most other parts of the county.
GARDEN GROVE, a village close to Westminster, is the center of a community of farmers.
Orange, Santa Ana, and Tustin.
Orange, Santa Ana, and Tustin form the angles of a triangle. Santa Ana is three miles from Orange, and two miles from Tustin. They are connected by street-railways, railroads, and by delightful drives. Together they form one continuous avenue lined by homes, surrounded by or- chards and vineyards, with three business centers.
ORANGE is delightfully situated near the foot of the Santa Ana Mountains. Here and in the vicinity the fruit for which the town is named reaches perfection. The an-
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nual profit from a few acres of oranges here sounds fabu- lous.
An acre of ground will support seventy-five trees, and these, after a few years in bearing, will often yield an in- come of $675 per year. Orange has an excellent hotel, and a large school-house. There are Christian, Methodist Episcopal, Baptist, German Lutheran, and Presbyterian churches.
But Orange has become most noted for its raisins. While Anaheim-five miles away-is a German, wine-mak- ing community, Orange is an American, raisin-producing community. The white Muscat grape, which is here used in raisin-curing, matures at least three or four weeks sooner than in the San Gabriel or Los Angeles valleys.
W. J. Shanklin, late Surveyor-General of the State of California, in a note to the Orange "Tribune," says : "With good care the yield of one-year-old vines in this vicinity will amount to $25 per acre, the second year $50 per acre. Vines continue to increase their yield until the fourteenth year, when they are considered in full bearing, and will yield from $200 to $300 per acre."
Mr. Robert McPherson, the greatest raisin-producer in the United States, in a paper before the Los Angeles County Pomological Society, said :
"The importance of our raisin industry is such that it should command the careful consideration of the best minds of our coun- try. This importance is felt not only in the fact that it is an indus- try which may support an immense number of people, but it now has and will have much to do with the health of our whole country. This latter point is well worth the examination and study of the most scientific minds, as the result of their investigation of the sub- ject would be of great benefit, by proving the health-giving proper- ties of our raisin-grapes. It is an established fact that where the best raisins are produced there is the best place for people suffering from lung or bronchial affections. It is known, too, that in cases of exhaustion, a handful of raisins will do much to revive sunken
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