tation of its fruits,
both deciduous and citrus, has suffered by specimens sent to Eastern
markets whose sole recommendation was size. Even in the vineyards and
orange orchards quality has been sacrificed to quantity. Nature here
responds generously to every encouragement, but it cannot be forced
without taking its revenge in the return of inferior quality. It is just
as true of Southern California as of any other land, that hard work and
sagacity and experience are necessary to successful horticulture and
agriculture, but it is undeniably true that the same amount of
well-directed industry upon a much smaller area of land will produce
more return than in almost any other section of the United States.
Sensible people do not any longer pay much attention to those tempting
little arithmetical sums by which it is demonstrated that paying so much
for ten acres of barren land, and so much for planting it with vines or
oranges, the income in three years will be a competence to the investor
and his family. People do not spend much time now in gaping over
abnormal vegetables, or trying to convince themselves that wines of
every known variety and flavor can be produced within the limits of one
flat and well-watered field. Few now expect to make a fortune by cutting
arid land up into twenty-feet lots, but notwithstanding the extravagance
of recent speculation, the value of arable land has steadily
appreciated, and is not likely to recede, for the return from it, either
in fruits, vegetables, or grain, is demonstrated to be beyond the
experience of farming elsewhere.

[Illustration: MAGNOLIA AVENUE, RIVERSIDE.]

Land cannot be called dear at one hundred or one thousand dollars an
acre if the annual return from it is fifty or five hundred dollars. The
climate is most agreeable the year through. There are no unpleasant
months, and few unpleasant days. The eucalyptus grows so fast that the
trimmings from the trees of a small grove or highway avenue will in four
or five years furnish a family with its firewood. The strong, fattening
alfalfa gives three, four, five, and even six harvests a year. Nature
needs little rest, and, with the encouragement of water and fertilizers,
apparently none. But all this prodigality and easiness of life detracts
a little from ambition. The lesson has been slowly learned, but it is
now pretty well conned, that hard work is as necessary here as elsewhere
to thrift and independence. The difference between