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COAST COUNTIES TO THE SOUTH

157

the Big

thirty or forty thousand acres, prevented modern progress, just as they did in Los Angeles. Beautiful ranches with most musical names,-Asuncion, Huasna, Nipomo, Paso de Robles, Santa Ysabel-they collectively held nearly half a million acres from full use. Now that they are sold to Americans, subdivided, improved, until there are Breaking up really no large ranches left, except Piedras Blancas, the Ranches. property of Mrs. Hearst, away up in the northwestern corner of the county, and Santa Margarita at the head of the Salinas. There is plenty of land for sale, land of all sorts, at all prices, in all kinds of situations, but, fortunately for San Luis Obispo, speculative period based on the great Spanish ranches has come and gone, as it did in Los Angeles years ago.

"Gone are the vaqueros, with their ringing spurs, sweeping by moonlight down the canyons, gone are the merry sheep-shearers galloping from ranch to ranch, or spending their summer's hard earnings on a spree in town. Gone are the shambling, half-crazy shepherds that one used to find in the hills, or on the plains shaking their forlorn heads, screaming wildly at their collies or huddled over their campfires in the hollows at dusk, in the midst of fretful sheep. Instead of all this there has come to San Luis Obispo, slowly, surely, as all worthwhile things come, knowledge of her unique position as a great, growing, rich and deservedly famous dairy county. Hardly elsewhere Famous Dairy in America has there been a more uniform record of success as among the dairymen, both landowners and renters of the San Luis coast."

The average season's rainfall has been at the city of San Luis Obispo during the past thirty-two years, twentyone inches. Grain, beans, seeds, live stock of all kinds, butter, cheese, oranges, lemons, apples, pears, peaches, prunes, apricots, olives, grapes, berries and vegetablesin fact all fruits of the temperate and semi-tropical zonesocean fish and bivalves, building stone, bituminous rock, asphaltum, chrome, manganese, quicksilver, copper, gold and springs of great medicinal value are among the productions of San Luis Obispo county.

Region.

Picturesque
Coast Towns.

In San Benito
County.

Transportation facilities are unexcelled. The great transcontinental highway of the Southern Pacific between San Francisco and Los Angeles crosses the county from north to south through the cities of San Miguel, Paso Robles, Templeton, Santa Margarita, San Luis Obispo, Edna, Oceano, and the Oso Flaco section. The Pacific Coast Railway comes from the south northward through Nipomo, Los Berros, Arroyo Grande, Edna and San Luis Obispo, terminating at Port Harford on the Pacific ocean, affording an ocean outlet as well as a rail outlet to the products of the county. The Pacific Coast Steamship Company's vessels touch at San Simeon, Cayucos and Port Harford. Numerous other good landing points are available for independent lines as competition may make desirable. A third railroad, the Midland Pacific, from the San Joaquin Valley to tide-water at Port Harford is now in course of construction. Schools are noted for their excellence, the substantial support given them and their thorough equipment. Graduates of the San Luis Obispo high school are accredited to the universities of the State. A San Luis Obispo resident writes:

"A home in San Luis Obispo county can be bought at a lower price (climate and fertility of soil considered), than elsewhere in California. This has been an unknown country, and consequently, land values are lower to-day than they were ten years ago in the better known parts of the State. The coast road places this county on the main line of travel and the first persons to take advantage of the new conditions will secure homes that are not only productive farms but that will double in value as the country becomes more thickly settled."

Easterly from Monterey made up of mountains and valleys of the Coast Range is San Benito county, a section rich in minerals and fast coming to the fore as a producer of fruits of all sorts as well as of hay and grain, and oil. The county seat is Hollister reached by a branch of the Southern Pacific coast line, connecting at Gilroy. rich product of the county is quicksilver. The New Idria quicksilver mine holds immense deposits of cinnabar.

A

CHAPTER VII.

MOUNTAIN COUNTIES. Renewed Gold Mining of Recent Years-Old Mines Being Worked and New Ones Found and Prospectors Busy-The Mother Lode a Treasure Bed-Riches of Plumas, Mono and Inyo CountiesCattle Ranges of Modoc and Lassen-Among the Lava Beds-Making Paper From Pine Trees -Where Sportsmen May Revel -A Mountain Region for Hunting and Fishing a Hundred Times the Size of the Adirondacks-In Owens Valley-Marble, Moss Agates, Salt, and BoraxDeath Valley and Its Nitrates -A Region of Arabian Nights Romance.

Bright land of summery days and golden peace,
Of vine and flower and ever rich increase;
Of veined hills and mountains treasure stored,
Where miser-gnomes in secret watch their hoard.

-JOHN R. Ridge.

PRO

ROBABLY no section of California offers greater opportunities to the man of limited means than that region of the State included in this chapter, the mountain counties. Under this designation are included the counties of Modoc, Lassen, Plumas, Sierra, Alpine, Mono, and Inyo, listed in geographical order from north to south. All of these counties are in the Sierra Nevada region; some, like Alpine, almost entirely mountainous, high among the ridges of the Sierra Nevada, but others like Lassen and Plumas containing long stretches of valley and meadow unsurpassed for grazing and cattle raising. Others, still, like Mono and Inyo, are mineral in character, although Inyo with its fertile Owens river valley has been coming to the front of recent years as an agricultural region of remarkable possibilities. Up in these mountain counties among the pines are all conditions for the rugged health ever a tribute of the mountaineer. Here are snow-crowned summits, clear lakes of almost unfathomable depths and wonderful views that make those of famed Switzerland like toys in comparison.

Characteris

tics of Alpine.

Overland Railway Across

County.

Alpine county is smallest in area of the mountain counties, and was so named by the pioneer residents because of its alpine features. Its elevation ranges from five thousand to eleven thousand feet above sea level. Its present population does not exceed one thousand. There

is room here with the resources for ten times that number. The citizens rank high for industry and intelligence and are proud of the productive possibilities of their region. The county is abundantly supplied with timber and water, and there are rich minerals in all sections. Apples, pears, plums, peaches, and other hardy fruits and vegetables do marvelously well in the mountain valleys. And these are characteristics of all of the Sierra valley region.

Plumas and Lassen counties are small empires, the Plumas latter nearly five thousand square miles in area. Through these counties runs the Nevada-California-Oregon Railway northerly from Reno, Nevada, the junction point with the Southern Pacific's central overland line. Mining developments and the incoming of Eastern and European capital have drawn attention to these counties and much work is being done and more prospective. The line of the recently organized Western Pacific railway will cross Plumas county through the Beckwith Pass, known to the earliest pioneers. The route is across the county into Butte county down into the Sacramento valley. This road some day, the projectors claim, will be the western outlet of another transcontinental railway.

What a Resi

dent of Lassen

Throughout Modoc and Lassen counties are vast cattle ranges, besides mines, tracts of timber and mountain lakes that are the delight of the sportsman. In Modoc county are the famous lava beds, the scene years ago of fiercely fought Indian campaigns. An industry recently developed is the utilizing of certain varieties of pine timber for the manufacture of pulp from which paper is made.

A resident of Susanville, Lassen county, Mr. J. E. Says. Pardee, writing recently of that section, gives the following statement concerning opportunities for settlers, and facts here given may be applied largely to the other mountain counties with similar characteristics:

[graphic]

WHERE SWEETNESS IS EXTRACTED FROM THE BEET-SUGAR FACTORY AT SPRECKELS, NEAR SALINAS.

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