We crossed the famous and dangerous “Tehachapi Pass” at night, and
wended our way slowly through this notable valley, three hundred miles
in length by thirty-five in width, stopping to found the W. C. T. U. in
its four chief towns, Fresno, Tulare, Merced, and Modesto.
Irrigation is the watchword here, and as it takes capitalists to carry
this through on a scale so immense, large farms are now the rule. For
instance, we passed over one seventy-three miles in length by twenty in
width. Later on, it is to be hoped these immense proprietaries may be
settled by men whose primary object is to establish and maintain homes.
At present, in the agricultural line, “big enterprises” are alone
attractive. “Alfalfa,” a peculiarly hardy and luxuriant clover—imported
by Governor Bigler from Chili—is the first crop, and grazing precedes
grain. This plant “strikes its roots six feet or more into the soil,
and never requires a second planting, while every year there are five
crops of alfalfa and but two of wheat and barley.”
Varied indeed is the population of this valley. One day we dine with a
practical woman from Massachusetts, who declares that the sand storms,
which most people consider the heaviest discount on the valley, are
“really not so bad, for they polish off the house floors as nothing
else could.” The next we meet a group of earnest, motherly hearts from
a dozen different States, and almost as many religious denominations,
united to “provide for the common defense” of home against saloon. Next
day a lawyer from Charleston invites us to his cozy residence, “because
his wife knows some of our Southern leaders in the W. C. T. U.” The
next we make acquaintance with half a dozen school ma’ams from the
East, who have taken a ranche and set up housekeeping for themselves;
and in the fourth town visited an Englishman born in Auckland, New
Zealand, the leading criminal lawyer of the county, and instigator of
the woman’s crusade in Oakland, who gives us a graphic description of
that movement, which was a far-off echo of the Ohio pentecost.
So we move on at the rate of two meetings a day, with the hearty
support of the united clergy (except the Episcopal, and often they
helped us, too), and the warm coöperation of the temperance societies,
emerging in San Francisco, Monday, April 16, 1883.