RIVERSIDE.
"Knowest thou the land where the lemon trees bloom,
Where the golden orange grows in the deep thickets' gloom,
Where a wind ever soft from the blue heavens blows,
And the groves are of laurel and myrtle and rose?"
Yes, that describes Riverside, and reads like a prophecy. If Pasadena is
a big garden with pretty homes scattered all through its shade and
flowers, then Riverside is an immense orange grove, having one city-like
street, with substantial business blocks and excellent stores, two
banks, one in the Evans block, especially fine in all its architecture
and arrangements, and the rest is devoted by the land-owners to raising
oranges and making them pay. You will see flowers enough to overwhelm a
Broadway florist, every sort of cereal, every fruit that grows, in prime
condition for the table ten months out of the twelve. Three hundred
sunny days are claimed here out of the three hundred and sixty-five.
They are once in a while bothered by a frost, but that is "unusual."
Before 1870 this was a dusty desert of decomposed granite. What has
caused the change? Scientific irrigation and plenty of it. Or, as Grant
Allen puts it, "mud." He says: "Mud is the most valuable material in the
world. It is by mud we live; without it we should die. Mud is filling up
the lakes. Mud created Egypt, and mud created Lombardy."
Yes, one can get rich here by turning dust into mud. It is said to be
the richest town "per capita" in all California of the same size, $1100
being the average allowance for each person. This is solemnly vouched
for by reliable citizens. And they have no destitute poor--a remarkable
record. The city and district are said to enjoy an annual income of
$1,500,000 from the fruit alone, and there is a million of unused money
in the two banks.
Irrigation is better than rain, for the orange growers can turn on a
shower or a stream whenever and wherever needed. It requires courage
and faith to go straight into a desert with frowning mountains, big,
little, and middle-sized, all about, and not an available drop of water,
and say, "I'm going to settle right here and turn this desert into a
beautiful home, and start a prosperous, wealthy city. All that this
rocky, barren plain needs is water and careful cultivation, and I will
give it both." That was Judge Brown's decision, and the result shows his
wisdom. No one agreed with him; it was declared that colonists could not
be induced to try it. But he could not relinquish the idea. He was
charmed by the dry, balmy air, so different from Los Angeles. He saw the
smooth plain was well adapted for irrigation, and Santa Ana could be
made to furnish all the water needed. So that it is really to him we owe
the pleasure of seeing these orchards, vineyards, avenues, and homes.
Where once the coyote and jack-rabbit had full sway, land now sells at
prices from $400 to $3000 per acre. There are no fences--at least, there
is but one in all Riverside. You see everywhere fine, well-trimmed
cypress hedges with trees occasionally cut in fantastic, elaborate
designs. There are many century plants about the grounds; they blossom
in this climate after twelve years, and die after the tall homely flower
has come to maturity. The roadsides have pretty flowers planted all
along, giving a gay look, and the very weeds just now are covered with
blossoms. Irrigation is carried on most scientifically, the water coming
from a creek and the "cienaga," which I will explain later. There are
several handsome avenues shaded with peppers, and hedges twenty feet
high, through which are obtained peeps at enchanting homes; but the
celebrated drive which all tourists are expected to take is that to and
fro through Magnolia Avenue, twelve miles long. The name now seems illy
chosen, as only a few magnolia trees were originally planted at each
corner, and these have mostly died, so that the whole effect is more
eucalyptical, palmy, and pepperaneous than it is magnolious. People come
here "by chance the usual way," and buy because they see the chance to
make money. You are told pretty big stories of successes; the failures
are not alluded to.
I saw a large and prosperous place belonging to a woman of business
ability, who came out all alone, took up a government grant, ploughed
and planted and irrigated, sent for a sister to help her, sold land at
great prices, and is now a wealthy woman. If I had not passed through
such depressing and enthusiasm-subduing experiences as an agriculturist
in the East I might be tempted here. I did look with interest at the
ostrich farms, and had visions of great profits from feathers, eggs, and
egg-shells. But it takes a small fortune to get started in that
business, as eggs are twenty dollars each, and the birds are sometimes
five hundred dollars apiece. And they are subject to rheumatism and a
dozen other diseases, and a blow from a kicking bird will kill one. I
concluded to let that dream be unrealized. Did you ever hear of the
nervous invalid who was told by his physician to buy a Barbary ostrich
and imitate him exactly for three months? It was a capital story. The
lazy dyspeptic was completely cured. As a hen woman I will remark _en
passant_ that it is hard to raise poultry in this part of California.
The climate is too exhilarating, and if the head of each chicken does
not get a drop of oil at once it dies of brain disease.
Corn does not thrive. Mr. Brown at first put down ten acres to corn. It
looked promising, but grew all to stalk. These stalks were over twelve
feet high, but corn was of no value, so he sold the stalks for eighty
dollars, and started his oranges.
The English are largely interested here, and have invested two or three
millions, which will pay large interest to their grandchildren. Their
long avenue is loyally named "Victoria." A thrifty Canadian crazed by
the "boom," the queerest mental epidemic or delusion that ever took hold
of sensible people, bought some stony land just under Rubidoux Mountain
for $4000. It was possibly worth $100, but in those delirious days many
did much worse. It is amazing to see what hard work and water and good
taste will do for such a place. He has blasted the rocks, made fountains
and cisterns, planted several acres of strawberries, set out hundreds
of orange trees, has a beautiful garden, two pretty cottages, and some
day he will get back his original price for a building site, for the
view is grand.
Riverside, while leading the orange-producing section of Southern
California, is not exactly the location which would have been selected
by the original settlers had they possessed the experience of the
producers of today. The oranges do not have to be washed, as in some
other places; they are not injured by smut or scale; the groves are
faultless in size of trees, shape, and taste of fruit. One orange
presented to me weighed thirty-one ounces. But the growers, having lost
$1,000,000 by Jack Frost several years ago, are obliged now to resort to
the use of lighted tar-pots on cold nights to make a dense smudge to
keep the temperature above the danger line. One man uses petroleum in
hundred-gallon casks, one for each acre, from which two pipes run along
between the rows of trees, with half a dozen elbows twenty feet apart,
over which are flat sheet-iron pans, into which the oil spatters as it
vaporizes. An intensely hot flame keeps off the frost. This I do not
hear spoken of at Riverside; you must go to a rival for any disagreeable
information. At Pasadena their severe winds are called "Riversiders"; at
Anaheim they are "Santa Anas"; and friends write me from damp Los
Angeles to the dry air of Riverside, "How can you stay in that 'damp'
place?" The inhabitants of Riverside do not concede that Pasadena is a
place for orange growers. At Redlands, luckily above frost terrors, the
terrible losses at Riverside from that trouble are profusely narrated.
San Diego gets its share of humorous belittlement from all. You hear the
story quoted of the shrewd Chinee who went to that city to look for
business, where one hears much of future developments, but did not
settle, saying, "It has too muchee bym-bye." Friends, and especially
hotel proprietors, exclaim in disgusted astonishment, "What! going to
Riverside? Why, there's nothing there but oranges."
I find more: fine and charming drives, scenery that differs from that
of Pasadena, "that poem of nature set to music beneath the swaying
rhythm of the pine forests of the lofty Sierra Madres," but is equally
enjoyable and admirable.
Still, above all, and permeating every other interest, is the _orange_.
As to dampness, a physician threatened with consumption, and naturally
desirous of finding the driest air, began while at Coronado Beach a
simple but sure test for comparative degrees of "humidity" by just
hanging a woolen stocking out of his window at night. At that place it
was wet all through, quite moist at Los Angeles, very much less so at
Pasadena, dry as a bone or red herring or an old-fashioned sermon at
Riverside. Stockings will tell! (From April to September is really the
best time to visit Coronado.) I experienced a very sudden change from a
warm, delightful morning to an afternoon so penetrating by cold that I
really suffered during a drive, although encased in the heaviest of
Jaeger flannels, a woolen dress, and a heavy wrap. I thought of the
rough buffalo coat my uncle, a doctor, used to put on when called out
on a winter night in New Hampshire, and wished I was enveloped in
something like it, with a heated freestone, for feet and a hot potato
for each hand. If I can make my readers understand that these sudden
changes make flannels necessary, and that one needs to be as careful
here as in Canada as regards catching cold from night air and these
unexpected rigors, I shall feel, as the old writers used to say, "that I
have not written entirely in vain."
In one day you can sit under the trees in a thin dress and be too warm
if the sun is at its best, and then be half frozen two hours later if
the wind is in earnest and the sun has retired. In the sun, Paradise; in
shade, protect yourself!