records of yields of considerably over a hundred bushels.
Corn will average forty bushels an acre. On the Los Angeles River it
has grown stalks seventeen feet high and seven inches round.
The average yield of wheat is from twenty to twenty-five bushels an
acre, about thirty-three per cent more than in the States on the
Atlantic slope.
In grains, as in so many other things, Los Angeles County is far in
advance of the other counties. In 1879 there were in the county 31,500
acres in wheat; in 1881, not less than 100,000; and the value of the
wheat crop, for 1882 was reckoned $1,020,000.
The great San Fernando valley, formerly the property of the San
Fernando Mission, is the chief wheat-producing section of the county.
The larger part of this valley is in two great ranches. One of them
was bought a few years ago for $275,000; and $75,000 paid down, the
remainder to be paid in instalments. The next year was a dry year;
crops failed. The purchaser offered the ranch back again to the
original owners, with his $75,000 thrown in, if they would release him
from his bargain. They refused. The next winter rains came, the wheat
crop was large, prices were high, and the ranch actually paid off the
entire debt of $200,000 still owing on the purchase.
From such figures as these, it is easy to see how the California
farmer can afford to look with equanimity on occasional droughts.
Experience has shown that he can lose crops two years out of five, and
yet make a fair average profit for the five years.
The most beautiful ranch in California is said to be the one about
twelve miles west of Santa Barbara, belonging to Elwood Cooper. Its
owner speaks of it humorously as a little "pocket ranch." In
comparison with the great ranches whose acres are counted by tens of
thousands, it is small, being only two thousand acres in extent; but
in any other part of the world except California, it would be thought
a wild jest to speak of an estate of two thousand acres as a small
one.
Ten years ago this ranch was a bare, desolate sheep ranch,--not a tree
on it, excepting the oaks and sycamores in the cañons. To-day it has
twelve hundred acres under high cultivation; and driving from field to
field, orchard to orchard, one drives, if he sees the whole of the
ranch, over eleven miles of good made road. There are three hundred
acres in wheat, one hundred and seventy in barley; thirty-five hundred
walnut trees, twelve thousand almond, five thousand olive, two
thousand fig and domestic fruit trees, and one hundred and fifty
thousand eucalyptus trees, representing twenty-four varieties; one
thousand grape-vines; a few orange, lemon, and lime trees. There are
on the ranch one hundred head of cattle, fifty horses, and fifteen
hundred sheep.
These are mere bald figures, wonderful enough as statistics of what
may be done in ten years' time on South California soil, but totally
inadequate even to suggest the beauty of the place.
The first relief to the monotony of the arrow-straight road which it
pleased an impatient, inartistic man to make westward from Santa
Barbara, is the sight of high, dark walls of eucalyptus trees on
either side of the road. A shaded avenue, three quarters of a mile
long, of these represents the frontages of Mr. Cooper's estate.
Turning to the right, through a break in this wall, is a road, with
dense eucalyptus woods on the left and an almond orchard on the right.
It winds and turns, past knolls of walnut grove, long lines of olive
orchard, and right-angled walls of eucalyptus trees shutting in
wheat-fields. By curves and bends and sharp turns, all the time with
new views, and new colors from changes of crop, with exquisite
glimpses of the sea shot through here and there, it finally, at the
end of a mile, reaches the brink of an oak-canopied cañon. In the
mouth of this cañon stands the house, fronting south on a sunny meadow
and garden space, walled in on three sides by eucalyptus trees.
To describe the oak kingdom of this cañon would be to begin far back
of all known kingdoms of the country. The branches are a network of
rafters upholding roof canopies of boughs and leaves so solid that the
sun's rays pierce them only brokenly, making on the ground a dancing
carpet of brown and gold flecks even in winter, and in summer a shade
lighted only by starry glints.
Farther up the cañon are sycamores, no less stately than the oaks,
their limbs gnarled and twisted as if they had won their places by
splendid wrestle.
These oak-and-sycamore-filled cañons are the most beautiful of the
South California cañons; though the soft, chaparral-walled cañons
would, in some lights, press them hard for supremacy of place. Nobody
will ever, by pencil or brush or pen, fairly render the beauty of the
mysterious, undefined, undefinable chaparral. Matted, tangled,
twisted, piled, tufted,--everything is chaparral. All botany may be
exhausted in describing it in one place, and it will not avail you in
another. But in all places, and made up of whatever hundreds of shrubs
it may be, it is the most exquisite carpet surface that Nature has to
show for mountain fronts or cañon sides. Not a color that it does not
take; not a bloom that it cannot rival; a bank of cloud cannot be
softer, or a bed of flowers more varied of hue. Some day, between 1900
and 2000, when South California is at leisure and has native artists,
she will have an artist of cañons, whose life and love and work will
be spent in picturing them,--the royal oak canopies; the herculean
sycamores; the chameleon, velvety chaparral; and the wild,
throe-built, water-quarried rock gorges, with their myriad ferns and
flowers.
At the head of Mr. Cooper's cañon are broken and jutting sandstone
walls, over three hundred feet high, draped with mosses and ferns and
all manner of vines. I saw the dainty thalictrum, with its clover-like
leaves, standing in thickets there, fresh and green, its blossoms
nearly out on the first day of February. Looking down from these
heights over the whole of the ranch, one sees for the first time the
completeness of its beauty. The eucalyptus belts have been planted in
every instance solely with a view to utility,--either as wind-breaks
to keep off known special wind-currents from orchard or grain-field,
or to make use of gorge sides too steep for other cultivation. Yet,
had they been planted with sole reference to landscape effects, they
could not better have fallen into place. Even out to the very ocean
edge the groves run, their purples and greens melting into the purples
and greens of the sea when it is dark and when it is sunny
blue,--making harmonious lines of color, leading up from it to the
soft grays of the olive and the bright greens of the walnut orchards
and wheat-fields. When the almond trees are in bloom, the eucalyptus
belts are perhaps most superb of all, with their dark spears and
plumes waving above and around the white and rosy acres.
The leading industry of this ranch is to be the making of olive oil.
Already its oil is known and sought; and to taste it is a revelation
to palates accustomed to the compounds of rancid cocoanut and
cotton-seed with which the markets are full. The olive industry will
no doubt ultimately be one of the great industries of the whole
country: vast tracts of land which are not suitable or do not command
water enough for orange, grape, or grain culture, affording ample
support to the thrifty and unexacting olive. The hill-slopes around
San Diego, and along the coast line for forty or fifty miles up, will
no doubt one day be as thickly planted with olives as is the
Mediterranean shore. Italy's olive crop is worth thirty million
dollars annually, and California has as much land suited to the olive
as Italy has.
The tree is propagated from cuttings, begins to bear the fourth year,
and is in full bearing by the tenth or twelfth. One hundred and ten
can be planted to an acre. Their endurance is enormous. Some of the
orchards planted by the friars at the missions over a hundred years
ago are still bearing, spite of scores of years of neglect; and there
are records of trees in Nice having borne for several centuries.
The process of oil-making is an interesting spectacle, under Mr.
Cooper's oak trees. The olives are first dried in trays with slat
bottoms, tiers upon tiers of these being piled in a kiln over a
furnace fire. Then they are ground between stone rollers, worked by
huge wheels, turned by horse-power. The oil, thus pressed out, is
poured into huge butts or tanks. Here it has to stand and settle three
or four months. There are faucets at different levels in these butts,
so as to draw off different layers of oil. After it has settled
sufficiently, it is filtered through six layers of cotton batting,
then through one of French paper, before it is bottled. It is then of
a delicate straw color, with a slight greenish tint,--not at all of
the golden yellow of the ordinary market article. That golden yellow
and the thickening in cold are sure proofs of the presence of
cotton-seed in oil,--the pure oil remaining limpid in a cold which
will turn the adulterated oils white and thick. It is estimated that
an acre of olives in full bearing will pay fifteen hundred dollars a
year if pickled, and two thousand dollars a year made into oil.
In observing the industries of South California and studying their
history, one never escapes from an undercurrent of wonder that there
should be any industries or industry there. No winter to be prepared
for; no fixed time at which anything must be done or not done at all;
the air sunny, balmy, dreamy, seductive, making the mere being alive
in it a pleasure; all sorts of fruits and grains growing a-riot, and
taking care of themselves,--it is easy to understand the character,
or, to speak more accurately, the lack of character, of the old
Mexican and Spanish Californians.
There was a charm in it, however. Simply out of sunshine, there had
distilled in them an Orientalism as fine in its way as that made in
the East by generations of prophets, crusaders, and poets.
With no more curiosity than was embodied in "Who knows?"--with no
thought or purpose for a future more defined than "Some other time;
not to-day,"--without greeds, and with the unlimited generosities of
children,--no wonder that to them the restless, inquisitive,
insatiable, close-reckoning Yankee seemed the most intolerable of all
conquerors to whom they could surrender. One can fancy them
shuddering, even in heaven, as they look down to-day on his colonies,
his railroads, his crops,--their whole land humming and buzzing with
his industries.
One questions also whether, as the generations move on, the atmosphere
of life in the sunny empire they lost will not revert more and more to
their type, and be less and less of the type they so disliked. Unto
the third and fourth generation, perhaps, pulses may keep up the
tireless Yankee beat; but sooner or later there is certain to come a
slacking, a toning down, and a readjusting of standards and habits by
a scale in which money and work will not be the highest values. This
is "as sure as that the sun shines," for it is the sun that will bring
it about.
FATHER JUNIPERO AND HIS WORK.
A SKETCH OF THE FOUNDATION, PROSPERITY, AND RUIN OF THE FRANCISCAN
MISSIONS IN CALIFORNIA.
I.
During the years when Saint Francis went up and down the streets of
Assisi, carrying in his delicate unused hands the stones for
rebuilding St. Damiano, he is said to have been continually singing
psalms, breaking forth into ejaculations of gratitude; his face
beaming as that of one who saw visions of unspeakable delight. How
much of the spirit or instinct of prophecy there might have been in
his exultant joy, only he himself knew; but it would have been strange
if there had not been vouchsafed to him at least a partial revelation
of the splendid results which must of necessity follow the carrying
out, in the world, of the divine impulses which had blazed up in his
soul like a fire. As Columbus, from the trend of imperfectly known
shores and tides, from the mysterious indications of vague untracked
winds, could deduce the glorious certainty of hitherto undreamed
continents of westward land, so might the ardent spiritual discoverer
see with inextinguishable faith the hitherto undreamed heights which
must be surely reached and won by the path he pointed out. It is
certain that very early in his career he had the purpose of founding
an order whose members, being unselfish in life, should be fit heralds
of God and mighty helpers of men. The absoluteness of self-renunciation
which he inculcated and demanded startled even the thirteenth
century's standard of religious devotion. Cardinals and pope alike
doubted its being within the pale of human possibility; and it was not
until after much entreaty that the Church gave its sanction to the
"Seraphic Saint's" band of "Fratri Minores," and the organized work
of the Franciscan Order began. This was in 1208. From then till now,
the Franciscans have been, in the literal sense of the word,
benefactors of men. Other of the orders in the Catholic Church have
won more distinction, in the way of learning, political power,
marvellous suffering of penances and deprivation; but the record of
the Franciscans is in the main a record of lives and work, like the
life and work of their founder; of whom a Protestant biographer has
written: "So far as can be made out, he thought little of himself,
even of his own soul to be saved, all his life. The trouble had been
on his mind how sufficiently to work for God and to help men."
Under the head of helping men, come all enterprises of discovery,
development, and civilization which the earth has known; and in many
more of these than the world generally suspects, has been an influence
dating back to the saint of Assisi. America most pre-eminently stands
his debtor. Of the three to whom belongs the glory of its discovery,
one, Juan Perez de Marchena, was a Franciscan friar; the other two,
Queen Isabella and Columbus, were members of Saint Francis's Third
Order; and of all the splendid promise and wondrous development on the
California coast to-day, Franciscan friars were the first founders.
In the Franciscan College at Santa Barbara is a daguerreotype, taken
from an old portrait which was painted more than a hundred years ago,
at the College of San Fernando, in Mexico. The face is one, once seen,
never to be forgotten; full of spirituality and tenderness and
unutterable pathos; the mouth and chin so delicately sensitive that
one marvels how such a soul could have been capable of heroic
endurance of hardship; the forehead and eyes strong, and radiant with
quenchless purpose, but filled with that solemn, yearning, almost
superhuman sadness, which has in all time been the sign and seal on
the faces of men born to die for the sake of their fellows. It is the
face of Father Junipero Serra, the first founder of Franciscan
missions in South California. Studying the lineaments of this
countenance, one recalls the earliest authentic portrait of Saint
Francis,--the one painted by Pisano, which hangs in the sacristy of
the Assisi church. There seems a notable likeness between the two
faces: the small and delicate features, the broad forehead, and the
expression of great gentleness are the same in both. But the saint had
a joyousness which his illustrious follower never knew. The gayety of
the troubadour melodies which Francis sung all through his youth never
left his soul: but Serra's first and only songs were the solemn chants
of the Church; his first lessons were received in a convent; his
earliest desire and hope was to become a priest.
Serra was born of lowly people in the island of Majorca, and while he
was yet a little child sang as chorister in the convent of San
Bernardino. He was but sixteen when he entered the Franciscan Order,
and before he was eighteen he had taken the final vows. This was in
the year 1730. His baptismal name, Michael Joseph, he laid aside on
becoming a monk, and took the name of Junipero, after that quaintest
and drollest of all Saint Francis's first companions; him of whom the
saint said jocosely, "Would that I had a whole forest of such
Junipers!"
Studying in the Majorca Convent at the same time with Serra, were
three other young monks, beloved and intimate companions of
his,--Palon, Verger, and Crespí. The friendship thus early begun never
waned; and the hearty and loving co-operation of the four had much to
do with the success of the great enterprises in which afterward they
jointly labored, and to which, even in their student days, they looked
forward with passionate longing. New Spain was, from the beginning,
the goal of their most ardent wishes. All their conversations turned
on this theme. Long years of delay and monastic routine did not dampen
the ardor of the four friends. Again and again they petitioned to be
sent as missionaries to the New World, and again and again were
disappointed. At last, in 1749, there assembled in Cadiz a great body
of missionaries, destined chiefly for Mexico; and Serra and Palon
received permission to join the band. Arriving at Cadiz, and finding
two vacancies still left in the party, they pleaded warmly that Crespí
and Verger be allowed to go also. At the very last moment this
permission was given, and the four friends joyfully set sail in the
same ship.
It is impossible at this distance of time to get any complete
realization of the halo of exalted sentiment and rapture which then
invested undertakings of this kind. From the highest to the lowest,
the oldest to the youngest, it reached. Every art was lent to its
service, every channel of expression stamped with its sign. Even on
the rude atlases and charts of the day were pictures of monks
embarking in ships of discovery; the Virgin herself looking on from
the sky, with the motto above, "Matre Dei montravit via;" and on the
ships' sails, "Unus non sufficit orbis."
In the memoir of Father Junipero, written by his friend Palon, are
many interesting details of his voyage to Vera Cruz. It lasted
ninety-nine days: provisions fell short; starvation threatened;
terrific storms nearly wrecked the ship; but through all, Father
Junipero's courage never failed. He said, "remembering the end for
which they had come," he felt no fear. He performed mass each morning,
and with psalms and exhortations cheered the sinking spirits of all on
board.
For nineteen years after their arrival in Mexico, Father Junipero and
his three friends were kept at work there, under the control of the
College of San Fernando, in founding missions and preaching. On the
suppression of the Jesuit Order, in 1767, and its consequent expulsion
from all the Spanish dominions, it was decided to send a band of
Franciscans to California, to take charge of the Jesuit missions
there. These were all in Lower California, no attempt at settlement
having been yet made in Upper California.
Once more the friends, glad and exultant, joined a missionary band
bound to new wildernesses. They were but three now, Verger remaining
behind in the College of San Fernando. The band numbered sixteen.
Serra was put in charge of it, and was appointed president of all the
California missions. His biographer says he received this appointment
"unable to speak a single word for tears." It was not strange, on the
realization of a hope so long deferred. He was now fifty-six years
old; and from boyhood his longing had been to labor among the Indians
on the western shores of the New World.
It was now the purpose of the Spanish Government to proceed as soon as
possible to the colonization of Upper California. The passion of the
Church allied itself gladly with the purpose of the State; and the
State itself had among its statesmen and soldiers many men who were
hardly less fervid in religion than were those sworn exclusively to
the Church's service. Such an one was Joseph de Galvez, who held the
office of Visitor-General and Commander, representing the person of
the King, and inspecting the working of the Government in every
province of the Spanish Empire. Upon him rested the responsibility of
the practical organization of the first expedition into Upper
California. It was he who ordered the carrying of all sorts of seeds
of vegetables, grains, and flowers; everything that would grow in Old
Spain he ordered to be planted in New. He ordered that two hundred
head of cattle should be taken from the northernmost of the Lower
California missions, and carried to the new posts. It was he also, as
full of interest for chapel as for farm, who selected and packed with
his own hands sacred ornaments and vessels for church ceremonies. A
curious letter of his to Palon is extant, in which he says laughingly
that he is a better sacristan than Father Junipero, having packed the
holy vessels and ornaments quicker and better than he. There are also
extant some of his original instructions to military and naval
commanders which show his religious ardor and wisdom. He declares that
the first object of the expedition is "to establish the Catholic
religion among a numerous heathen people, submerged in the obscure
darkness of paganism, to extend the dominion of the King our Lord, and
to protect this peninsula from the ambitious views of foreign
nations."
With no clearer knowledge than could be derived from scant records of
Viscayno's voyage in 1602, he selected the two best and most salient
points of the California coast, San Diego and Monterey, and ordered
the founding of a mission at each. He also ordered the selection of a
point midway between these two, for another mission to be called Buena
Ventura. His activity, generosity, and enthusiasm were inexhaustible.
He seems to have had humor as well; for when discussing the names of
the missions to be founded, Father Junipero said to him, "But is there
to be no mission for our Father St. Francis?" he replied, "If St.
Francis wants a mission, let him show us his post, and we will put one
there for him!"
The records of this first expedition into California are full of
interest. It was divided into two parts, one to go by sea, and one by
land; the sea party in two ships, and the land party in two divisions.
Every possible precaution and provision was thought of by the wise
Galvez; but neither precaution nor provision could make the journey
other than a terrible one. Father Junipero, with his characteristic
ardor, insisted on accompanying one of the land parties, although he
was suffering severely from an inflamed leg, the result of an injury
he had received twenty years before in journeying on foot from Vera
Cruz to the city of Mexico. Galvez tried in vain to detain him; he
said he would rather die on the road than not go, but that he should
not die, for the Lord would carry him through. However, on the second
day out, his pain became so great that he could neither sit, stand,
nor sleep. Portalá, the military commander of the party, implored him
to be carried in a litter; but this he could not brook. Calling one of
the muleteers to him, he said,--
"Son, do you not know some remedy for this sore on my leg?"
"Father," replied the muleteer, "what remedy can I know? I have only
cured beasts."
"Then consider me a beast," answered Serra; "consider this sore on my
leg a sore back, and give me the same treatment you would apply to a
beast."
Thus adjured, the muleteer took courage, and saying, "I will do it,
Father, to please you," he proceeded to mix herbs in hot tallow, with
which he anointed the wound, and so reduced the inflammation that
Father Junipero slept all night, rose early, said matins and mass, and
resumed his journey in comparative comfort. He bore this painful wound
to the end of his life; and it was characteristic of the man as well
as of the abnormal standards of the age, that he not only sought no
measures for a radical cure of the diseased member, but, obstinately
accepting the suffering as a cross, allowed the trouble to be
aggravated in every way, by going without shoes or stockings and by
taking long journeys on foot.