who have not money enough to live without work.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE ADVANCE OF CULTIVATION SOUTHWARD.

The immense county of San Diego is on the threshold of its development.
It has comparatively only spots of cultivation here and there, in an
area on the western slope of the county only, that Mr. Van Dyke
estimates to contain about one million acres of good arable land for
farming and fruit-raising. This mountainous region is full of charming
valleys, and hidden among the hills are fruitful nooks capable of
sustaining thriving communities. There is no doubt about the salubrity
of the climate, and one can literally suit himself as to temperature by
choosing his elevation. The traveller by rail down the wild Temecula
Canon will have some idea of the picturesqueness of the country, and, as
he descends in the broadening valley, of the beautiful mountain parks of
live-oak and clear running water, and of the richness both for grazing
and grain of the ranches of the Santa Margarita, Las Flores, and Santa
Rosa. Or if he will see what a few years of vigorous cultivation will
do, he may visit Escondido, on the river of that name, which is at an
elevation of less than a thousand feet, and fourteen miles from the
ocean. This is only one of many settlements that have great natural
beauty and thrifty industrial life. In that region are numerous
attractive villages. I have a report from a little canon, a few miles
north of Escondido, where a woman with an invalid husband settled in
1883. The ground was thickly covered with brush, and its only product
was rabbits and quails. In 1888 they had 100 acres cleared and fenced,
mostly devoted to orchard fruits and berries. They had in good bearing
over 1200 fruit-trees among them 200 oranges and 283 figs, which yielded
one and a half tons of figs a week during the bearing season, from
August to November. The sprouts of the peach-trees grew twelve feet in
1889. Of course such a little fruit farm as this is the result of
self-denial and hard work, but I am sure that the experiment in this
region need not be exceptional.

[Illustration: SEXTON NURSERIES, NEAR SANTA BARBARA.]

San Diego will be to the southern part of the State what San Francisco
is to the northern. Nature seems to have arranged for this, by providing
a magnificent harbor, when it shut off the southern part by a mountain
range. During the town-lot lunacy it was said that San Diego could not
grow because it had no b