Barronna, and Salvidea, graces the ruins as an article of schoolroom furniture. Around about may be seen distributed large piles of dirt, etc., all of which, at one day or another, since 1776, were manufactories, nunneries, workshops, dwelling houses, etc. This, and the ruins of the church and its corridors, are all that remain of the once rich and celebrated Mission of San Juan Capistrano. CHAPTER XIII. THE GREAT CORN-PRODUCING DISTRICTS OF LOS ANGELES COUNTY -EL I WILL now take the reader through the extensive corn-producing districts of Los Angeles county, which have for their depots El Monte and Los Nietos. Los Nietos township comprises an area of from eight to ten miles square. Six years ago it was in a condition of primeval unproductiveness. Hardly a house was to be seen, except the scattered adobes of the native population. I do not know how I can better convey the idea of the rapid growth of the settlement, than by stating that there are now within the above defined limits seven public school districts, all of them provided with comfortable and well-furnished school-houses, costing from $1,000 to $4,000. The school-house in Gallatin is a two-story frame, thirty by fifty-six feet, and has in constant attendance over one hundred pupils, all living within one mile of the schoolhouse. In addition to the above mentioned seven districts, there has recently been established the "Los Nietos Collegiate Institute," the location of which is about one mile north of the railroad depot. It is under the superintendence of Rev. S. M. Adams. of the M., E. Church South. The building is a twostory frame, twenty-five by fifty feet, and there are already sixty pupils in attendance. A community comparatively so new as this, which has already made such rapid strides in the allimportant direction of educating the rising generation, must possess within itself all the elements of permanence, stability and prosperity. I am informed that a large majority of the land-holders in the township own tracts ranging from ten to forty acres in fact, that a fair average of ownership throughout would not exceed the last named number. Land in the township ranges from $20 to $100 per acre, dependent upon loca tion and improvement. Those of the residents with whom I conversed were unstinted in their praise of the exhaustless fertility of the soil, claiming, moreover, that anything can be grown on their lands that can be grown in any part of the county. Corn is the staple crop of the region. The yield is dependent, as a matter of course, to some extent upon the favorableness of the season, and ranges from fifty to one hundred and twentyfive bushels per acre. A fair average would probably be seventyfive bushels. Like other grains it is sold principally by the cental. It has brought in dry seasons as high as two dollars per cental, and has touched as low a figure as fifty cents, at which latter price it can only be made remunerative by being converted into pork. Rye and barley are also favorite crops, and rarely if ever fail. Large quantities of beets are also raised for stock feed. Somebody weighed one in my presence, and it pulled down the beam at one hundred and thirty pounds. Assemblyman Venable informed me that he thought one hundred and twenty-five to one hundred and fifty tons an acre a moderate estimate of their productiveness. Peaches, pears, apples and walnuts have established their affinity for Los Nietos, and there are not wanting evidences of the adaptability of certain portions to the cultivation of the orange and its congeners. Whatever may be the result in the latter direction, however, the region in question possesses enough of the elements which go to make up a prosperous settlement to render it attractive to men of small means. During my stay in the neighborhood I heard not a single complaint (even at second hand), unless a disposition on the part of some to grumble, because it was so easy to make a living that in many instances the farming was careless and slipshod, could be called a complaint. And this, I think, is saying a good deal. The houses of the settlers, for the most part, wear an air of thrift and comfort, and the corn-bins full of golden grain certainly look as if there was little danger of famine in the land. Los Nietos bids fair to become a rival of El Monte as a pork-growing district, much attention being paid to that particular business. Gallatin has been for some years the postoffice town, but the office has lately been removed to Downey City, the new town on the Los Angeles and Anaheim railroad. The new town site embraces one hundred and forty acres. It has been subdivided into lots seventy by one hundred and forty-five feet, which are held at from one hundred to one hundred and fifty dollars. There are fifty buildings already erected in the new town. My idea of El Monte, before I had seen it, grew out of what limited knowledge of the latin language I possessed. I knew the word Monte was the ablative case of the latin word for mountain, and supposed that on arriving at the above named locality I should find myself at the foot, at least, of some isolated peak from which the settlement derived its name. I found myself instead, however, in the centre of a luxuriant plantation of willows, cottonwood, etc., and on inquiry was informed that the term El Monte means a forest growth, or something to that effect. This locality has long borne the reputation of exceeding in the production of corn and bacon, which seem to be the staples of the region. A glance, however, at the surrounding fields furnishes good evidence that other grains than corn find a congenial soil in the vicinity. The village, which has grown up in the settlement, affords substantial proof of the prosperity of the neighborhood, inasmuch as three well-equipped stores are found necessary to supply the local demand for merchandise of the general description which is usually kept on hand in country establishments. The extreme moisture of the soil, in the greater part of the lands on the southern part of the township, renders fruit-growing somewhat precarious; but those who have selected the more elevated portions of even that part of El Monte manage to get an ample supply of peaches, pears, grapes, etc. The immediate surroundings of the village are more than ordinarily picturesque. I do not think that I have seen lovelier lanes anywhere than are found to the south of the town. They serve admirably to show the capacity of other similar regions in Los Angeles county for forest culture, and are but the shadowing forth of what Richland, Santa Ana, Gospel Swamp, Westminster and other settlements will be when a few years have furnished growth to the thousands of trees which have been planted along the road-sides. Many of the farm-houses are more than ordinarily neat and commodious. Much of the land, however, being held only by leasehold tenure, the improvements are not, as a general rule, as substantial as ought to be expected, from the fact that this is one of the earliest settlements made by Americans in the county. It is worth any one's while, who desires to fully realize how beautiful the barren plains of this county can be made by tree-planting, to drive out to El Monte and through the willow and cottonwood lanes to the south of the town. To enlarge upon the extraordinary fertility of these bottom lands, seems only like repeating the oft-told tale. Seventy-five to one hundred bushels of corn per acre is but the ordinary average, and other grains in proportion. Beets and other roots assume proportions which dwarf all ordinary growths. The bacon raised in the neighborhood, being for the most part grainfed, ranks deservedly high in the market, and commands, wherever offered for sale, the most remunerative price. Strange to say, much of it finds a market right at home, many prosperous farmers not raising enough for their own use; so I was informed by Mr. McLean, one of the merchants of the place, who showed large supplies laid in to meet the home demand. This he accounted for by the number of farmers who occupy leased land, they finding it cheaper to purchase than to build the necessary fences and pens for their stock. I imagine that all this will be changed when the district is occupied by farmers owning their lands, a condition of affairs not likely, in my opinion, to be long postponed, the evident tendency being to the sale, by large land-owners, of their possessions in small tracts. Land in this section is held at from twenty-five to seventy-five dollars per acre; improved places, of course, bringing still higher figures. A depot of the Southern Pacific Railroad, whose present terminus is at Spadra, has been established at El Monte, a fact which will, of course, aid materially in accelerating the growth and prosperity of the entire vicinity. El Monte has a Masonic and Granger Lodge, and a comfortable school-house, and, without making any great pretensions, is jogging along in the beaten path of prosperity. Leaving El Monte, the tourist at once enters upon the magnificent domain called the San José Rancho. The San José Rancho consisted of about twenty-four thousand acres, of which Mr. Louis Phillips and Mr. H. Dalton now own about eight thousand acres each, and the heirs of Palomares the remainder. |