The country lying between San Diego and El Cajon does not at this time
of the year present many attractive features. The little train,
consisting of a locomotive, tender and a passenger car, wriggles itself
between brown, rolling hills, over small cañons, dry and sandy, without
any other vegetation than grass, and here and there a few evergreen
shrubs. Close to San Diego we pass along the Chollas valley and creek,
where an attempt has been made at colonization, as we understand it in
the San Joaquin valley. The land is divided up in ten and twenty-acre
tracts and dotted over with small and unpretentious cottages, as well as
with fine and expensive mansions. Young orchards of pears, olives,
prunes, oranges and figs are seen wedged in between vacant and unbroken
land. In the river bottom are Chinese gardens, with windmills, and
patches of cabbage, corn and small truck. Much of this land is irrigated
with water from the Sweetwater dam, some twelve miles away on the
Sweetwater river. On the bottom land there are a few Muscat vineyards,
for the supply of the San Diego market. I noticed the grapes there. They
were of the Muscat of Alexandria variety, very large and fine both as to
bunch and berry, and very sweet. I have seen no finer Alexandrias
anywhere.
But we have hardly time to observe this cultivated spot before we are
out again among the rolling hills. The engine pants heavily, and we are
constantly ascending. The same low hills everywhere,--no settlers, no
gardens, no plantations of any kind. The soil is brown adobe mixed with
gravel and small boulders; in fact there is nothing to see and admire.
For twenty miles there are two or three small stations, but there were
no station houses to be seen nor any settlements around. The railroad is
apparently made to tap a better country in the interior. But even in
this uninhabited country the boom started to penetrate in earnest. Large
signs announcing the sale of town lots, wide streets once plowed up
across each other at right angles, square blocks which are plowed around
or otherwise mapped out, here and there a white post with a number and a
name, and we have a good idea of a town where the lots sold for $250
apiece or more.
All at once the engine whistles, the area widens and we see in front of
us a large, flat valley, apparently almost circular, from four to five
miles across, bounded by lower and higher hills, behind which a few
higher peaks look down gray and solemn. This is El Cajon. We step out on
the platform of the station, and the view is fine. The valley lies below
us, the bottom is apparently flat, but in reality slightly undulating
and somewhat sloping towards the center. Rows of vines begin at the
station, and from here vineyards stretch in all directions for miles and
miles, sometimes in large blocks of regular shape, then again in
irregular patches among otherwise cultivated lands half way up on the
lower hills. Dotted all over the valley are farmhouses in all styles,
elegant and tasty or plain and simple, enough only to keep out the rain
and the sun. Around every such cluster of buildings there is a little
plantation of eucalyptus and cypress, and a few ornamental plants. Here
and there at long intervals is seen a row of gums, black and somber, as
if they were on duty as shields from wind and fog. We are soon in the
bus on the way to town. The roads are straight and well kept, bordered
with young eucalyptus and cypress, and with vineyards on both sides with
the rows of vines remarkably distinct; we can follow each one of them
distinctly for several miles over the undulating ground until they end
on the steeper slopes of the hills, or run into the little cañons
bordering the valley. El Cajon has no pretentions to being a town; it is
an unassuming and quiet little village, whose inhabitants, when they
speak of “town,” always mean San Diego, twenty miles away. El Cajon has
a dozen houses, all told, one of each kind of the most necessary stores
and shops, but Wells, Fargo & Co. have not yet discovered this quiet
place. Nevertheless, it has two hotels, one small and unassuming, which
runs a bus to the station, and where everybody seems to meet; the other,
large and pretentious, both as to bay-windows and name,--Corona del
Cajon, but apparently void of much internal life. The railroad to El
Cajon was finished only some eight months ago. If it had been running
three years ago during the Southern boom, the valley would perhaps
to-day be rivaling Pasadena and Riverside in thrifty farms and
residences.
El Cajon is the most important raisin-producing district in San Diego
county, and so exclusively and to such an extent have the raisin grapes
been planted here that we hardly see anything else. Vineyards as far as
we can see in all directions; vineyards in the rolling bottom of the
valley; vineyards also on the steeper slopes of the hills; nothing else
than Muscats of Alexandria for business, and only a few other vines
around the cottages for home use. A drive through the valley brings us
in close contact with what we saw from the more elevated station. One
vineyard joins the other, with only a road between, and there are no
rows of poplars and only very rarely a row of eucalyptus or cypress. The
view is open on every side, and from every point we can see over the
valley and the low hills surrounding it. The vines have at this time of
the year left off growing and have assumed a dark green color, not
relieved by any young and more vividly colored shoots. The grapes hang
ripe under the branches, and the trays are in many places distributed in
piles over the field. There are two packing-houses in the valley; the
one now under way is 40 by 130 feet, being built of redwood, and
apparently most carefully put up. I see no sign of irrigation anywhere,
and every one tells me that it is not required. But I cannot help
thinking that a little water judiciously used would have kept the vines
growing much longer, and would have naturally increased the crop, which
now only averages two and one-half tons of green grapes per acre. There
are many very beautiful mansions in the valley, surrounded by very
praiseworthy attempts at landscape gardening, but the absence of water
for irrigation makes itself felt everywhere, both in regard to the size
of the plants and their color. Water can be had in abundance at a depth
of from only twelve to eighteen feet, and windmills and reservoirs would
do much towards a substitute for ditches. As we drive through the valley
and up the divide between El Cajon and the Sweetwater valley, the view
is very attractive indeed,--on one side the many well-kept vineyards of
El Cajon, on the other, way below us, the narrow and winding valley of
the Sweetwater.
The Sweetwater valley, or rather continuation of valleys, is much
smaller than El Cajon, perhaps only a quarter or half mile wide, but it
is more favorable to raisins, grapes or vegetation of any kind. Olive
orchards of good size trees, vineyards with large and yet growing vines,
cornfields and pastures, and the winding and shaded little creek in the
center of the valley, give the latter a freshness and beauty not
surpassed anywhere.
On our way on the railroad as well as through El Cajon valley, we have
frequently passed alongside of or under the now famous Cuyamaca flume,
carrying water to San Diego and Coronado. This flume is a fine
structure, running sometimes in the ground, sometimes again on elevated
trestle-work over the ravines, or spanning the gaps between lofty hills.
The whole length of the flume is thirty-six miles, and the cost of
construction was $112,000. Its size is five feet, ten inches wide, and
sixteen inches deep, but by an addition of two more boards the depth of
the water can be increased to three feet, ten inches,--a large body of
water for this country, where water is comparatively scarce. The flume
heads in a magnificent dam at the head of San Diego river, and it would
suffice to irrigate quite a large stretch of country if the people were
only willing to use the water. But the farmers here have been so
repeatedly told that the land absolutely needs no irrigation, and indeed
would be ruined by the same, that the most of them now fully believe
this to be the case. The water is therefore not diverted anywhere along
the route of the flume, and even in El Cajon and other places, where the
crop of almost every kind of fruit would be doubled by judicious
irrigation, no effort to use the same is made. I could find no one who
irrigated, and as a consequence the company that owns the flume have not
yet put in the extra boards that would more than double the carrying
capacity of the flume.
One of the most interesting places in San Diego county is the famous
Sweetwater dam. It takes only two and one-half hours to visit it and
return, and a trip to it will repay the trouble. We start out southeast
and cross to National City, only a few miles from San Diego, and really
a suburb of that town. National City is decidedly new, an attempt at
something grand, which it will take sometime to finish. The most
interesting thing there, in a horticultural sense, is the olive orchards
of Kimball Brothers. They are scattered in two or three places, and
comprise about fifty acres altogether. The trees are as large as good
size apple trees, bushy and silvery, and are heavily laden with fruit.
The land around each tree was checked up, each tree having a little
square for itself, and a Chinaman with a hoe was busy irrigating. In
one corner of the orchard was a large circular reservoir five or six
feet high, and perhaps twenty feet across, to facilitate the irrigation.
The train starts from here directly in among the hills, following the
bed of the Sweetwater river. The bottom land is now being settled up by
farmers and gardeners, who were busy taking their first lessons in
irrigation. The plantations of course are very young, the irrigation
works having been finished quite recently. At Sunnyside there are a few
older orchards of oranges and olives, but, as a whole, the country is
uncultivated.
Five minutes more and we are at the dam. There is no station, except a
little wooden platform, and we had to scramble over a rough hill to get
down to the dam. The gorge there is probably one hundred feet wide and
several hundred feet deep, with almost perpendicular sides. There is no
other vegetation visible than grass and a few low shrubs scattered
around. It is a most excellent place for a dam. The Sweetwater dam is
built almost entirely of masonry and cement, and, both as regards
construction and size, is one of the very best in the world. It is built
in the shape of an arch, with the convex part up stream, and gives an
impression of solidity and safety not always found in structures of this
kind. The masonry dam is forty-six feet wide at the bottom, at the top
twelve feet. The length of the top is 340 feet, and at the bottom of the
cañon the base of the dam is about one hundred feet, while the height is
about ninety feet in the center. At one end of the dam is a wasteway and
gates for letting the water out in case of a flood. The gates slide on
an inclined plane, and consist simply of three-inch boards with pegs in
each end, which are caught by a hook when they are to be raised. The
capacity of the wasteway is said to be fifteen hundred cubic feet per
second, or as much as the Sweetwater river is ever likely to carry, even
during flood time. For one who is accustomed to headgates and waterways
in the Fresno canals, this waterway looks very small indeed. But the
engineers say it is large enough, and we suppose they must be right. The
water is delivered through a large iron pipe thirty-six inches in
diameter, covered for some distance down the cañon with masonry. For
29,807 feet, this pipe line runs down the valley or on the mesa lands
adjoining it. It will deliver fifty million gallons of water per day,
and can now irrigate ten thousand acres of land. The whole cost of
construction was $502,000, and the time consumed in building was two
years.
The reservoir, as it now stands, is a magnificent sheet of water with
tributary watersheds of 186 square miles, and a water surface of about
three and one-half square miles. It is a grand illustration of the
enterprise of the San Diego capitalists, of the skill and success of the
California engineers, and of what may possibly be accomplished on nearly
every stream in San Diego county. It is a structure of which any country
might be proud, and which has few equals and no superiors anywhere in
the world.
On our way back we meet a picnic party of schoolgirls, who with their
teachers have spent the day in the country. They fill the cars with
smiles and chat, with flowers in bouquets and garlands, in baskets and
by the armful. We are treated to flowers and to beautiful Muscat grapes
culled from the vineyards,--enormous bunches and berries almost as large
as plums. These grapes are a revelation to me, grown here within the
reach of the fogs of the ocean, and irrigated with water from the dam or
flume. Verily, I have never seen choicer grapes anywhere, and I am
satisfied that they could not be surpassed by any for raisins. What a
fertile country this will be when irrigation is better understood and
more practiced. Could we but see it when that time comes.