Resources of Power Within the past four years, dredger mining has been Mountain introduced and gold dredges are working in many places. Streams. In the dredger field at Oroville, where the first successful Distance Plants. machine was launched, twenty dredges, representing an outlay of more than $1,000,000 in machinery alone, are delving deep into the earth and reaping a golden harvest. The power resources of the mountain streams is another factor in progess. Bordering this valley are power plants that are attracting attention of the mechanics and electrical engineers of the world. Electrical transmission has been developed here to its greatest efficiency. The power of mountain streams is already driving the machinery of farms, mines, orchards and of factories located on the bay of San Francisco, one hundred and fifty miles away. What is now being done is but the beginning of the area of power transmission. The electric current brings to the door of the factory the power of the waterfall of the mountain canyon and delivers it at a cost which renders fuel plants out of the question. At present the supply of developed power is wholly inadequate to supply the demand, but new plants are building and will continue to be built. The waterfalls are among the most valuable assets of this section and give promise of a prosperity in all lines of activity where the question of cost of power is a factor. Long The Bay Counties Power Company, which transmits Transmission power to Sacramento and Oakland, has a plant at Colgate, capacity 25,000 horse power. Another is on Butte Creek, near Chico, with a capacity of 12,000 horse power, and near the same point a new plant is under way where 20,000 horse power will be generated. The same company controls the Fall River falls, twenty-five miles east of Oroville, which has a capacity of about 5,000 horse power. On French Creek, fifteen miles from Oroville, they have made surveys and begun preliminary work on a plant, the estimated capacity of which is 25,000 horse power. Another lately formed has secured rights on the upper North Fork of Feather River and proposes to build a plant of 300,000 horse power. The same company, it is reported, Mare Island recently secured control of the Big Bend tunnel, fifteen miles above Oroville on the North Fork, where 25,000 horse power may be developed at comparatively small cost. In Solano county is Vallejo, the navy yard town. Near Navy Yard. it is Mare Island, a large reservation owned by the government located in the northern end of San Pablo Bay, a tributary of San Francisco Bay. On this island are located the shops, docks, barracks, and officers' residences of the naval rendezvous of the Pacific fleet. Here war ships are constructed and repaired and the location here of these shops gives employment to many thousand men. Lands and Timber Upon the slopes of the Sierra are vast tracts of pine Lumbering timber of many varieties and large fortunes are invested Industries. in the lumbering industry. Among the recent interesting The Out-of-door Appeals. developments of the present is the acquisition of vast tracts of timber land in the mountains by corporations which propose soon to begin the manufacture of wood products on a larger scale than heretofore known in this region. For example, the Diamond Match Company, one of the largest corporations dealing in lumber and its products, has recently purchased 60,000 acres of timber land in Butte, Plumas and Tehama counties. Its agents have been making surveys for railroad, and it is common belief that soon they will begin work on a gigantic scale. The signs of the times point to unprecedented growth in the industries growing out of timber resources. Despite all other attractions of California, mining, Life that lumbering, and the things that attract in city life for the average man, the possibility of profit and health in an out-of-door life, in fruit growing of some sort, is the thing that must appeal. For life in the sunshine means health, and without health the human being is a nuisance. It is a difficult task to picture in words the vast orchards now growing throughout the valley and yielding annual delectation for the markets of California, the Orient, and the Eastern States; orchards of prunes, apricots, apples, pears, figs, almonds, peaches and olives; groves of oranges, lemons and grape-fruit; countless acres of small fruits of rare excellence and more acres equally countless of vegetables of all sorts. The counties of the Sacramento valley yield annually over one-half of all the fresh deciduous fruit produced in California and over one third of the entire output, green, canned, or dried. The fruit growers are wide-awake and progressive, following modern methods in training and cultivating. Every county in the valley has thousands of acres of orchard, including almost every fruit grown. Trainloads of dry fruits are shipped from almost every station in the orchard regions. Immense canneries in various parts of the valley employ thousands of people during the canning season and pack thousands of tons of luscious fruit for the best trade. In the deciduous fruit business, too, the demand for the product has kept pace with the increased production, and there is no reason to doubt that such will long continue. Orange Central and The amount of land suitable for growing oranges in Future of these valleys is practically unlimited, and results thus far Growing in warrant the prediction that within ten years the output Northern of the counties included in the San Joaquin and Sacra- California. mento valleys will exceed twenty thousand carloads annually. As elsewhere noted, the future holds great things for the orange growing industry of the central and northern California counties, all for the reason that fruit ripens and is ready to go to the Eastern market by Thanksgiving Day. In 1893 four carloads were sent East, while last year more than 2000 carloads left the State from this section. Elsewhere tables of shipments indicate the growth of this industry. In 1901, more than half of the Oroville crop was shipped before Thanksgiving, and practically the whole was off before Christmas. Oroville Orange Orange culture is ever alluring, yielding returns that Profits of are almost beyond belief. The first orchard planted for commercial purposes, by the Oroville Citrus Association, has proven a veritable bonanza. It was planted for the purpose of determining whether or not oranges could be grown profitably and it has settled the point. The orchard represents a total outlay of $24,000.00. It has returned to the investors $17,000.00, leaving the net cost Profits in e Pickled to them at this time $7,000.00, and it is worth at a conservative estimate $100,000.00. The crop of oranges of 1901 sold for more than $13,000. These are facts which can be verified at the office of the company. The association is composed of Oroville business men and they have made no secret of the results of their enterprise. The olive is rapidly becoming the staple product of Olives. the valley, especially of the foot-hill regions, and the success attained in the growing of this fruit is scarcely second to that which has attended orange culture. The ripe pickled olive has proved a revelation to olive consumers. It is rich, oily, delicious, and wins its way wherever introduced. The demand has increased more rapidly than the supply. A few years ago when first the olive groves of this region began to bear fruit, the growers found it almost impossible to market their product. To-day, immense pickling establishments turn out cured olives by the carload and are unable to keep up with their orders. Oroville shipped last year one hundred thousand gallons of pickled olives. The price ranges from forty cents to a dollar and a quarter a gallon according to quality, and the business is very profitable. Olive oil is also manufactured extensively, and the oil industry is far past the experimental stage. Manufacturers who have been careful to maintain a high standard of purity and excellence find a ready market at remunerative prices, among those who have learned to distinguish the pure article. The future of olive oil making is full of promise, especially when the pure California olive oil is freed from the competition of the cheap adulterated oils of Europe. Early At many points deciduous fruits ripen early. In 1901 Cherries. the first cherries were shipped April 11th. In 1902, the Ripening season was later and the first cherries sold in Chicago, April 29th, for $2.30 per pound. In many cases the profits from an acre have amounted to over $200. Secretary F. E. Wright of the Sacramento Valley Development Association, says: "The valley is the natural home of the fig. Small |