THE ORANGE IN CALIFORNIA.
By D. B. Weir
THE orange was first planted in Southern California by the San Franciscan Fathers, soon after they established their first mission in the State, at San Diego, in 1769. Around Los Angeles the golden fruit was clustered, and a few outside orange groves proclaimed that the soil and climate in that section, as to the requirements of citrus and semitropical fruit trees, could not be surpassed. The climate and its delicious product, however, in time10asserted themselves, and it is to them that not only the beautiful city of Los Angeles, but the whole region of Southern California, owes its great prosperity. When the secret of the soil's fertility—a secret which nature had so long kept guarded under the unattractive covering, of parched sage and grease bush—was discovered and understood, the scene was rapidly changed, and the rich soil, riotous in the exuberance of delight at escape from the bondage of aridity, burst out into productiveness on a scale that drove men wild with excitement. They had found out that with irrigation those dry, barren lands could be converted into gardens of Hesperides.—D. B. Weir, in August Californian.