EXAMPLES OF DROUGHT RESISTANCE. 17 



In the northern portion of the ranch oHve trees which had received 

 a httle irrigation and less tramphng and hardening of the ground 

 produced fair crops of fruit, thus demonstrating that a small differ- 

 ence in conditions may be sufficient to decide between a mere holding 

 on to life and a fair commercial success. The climatic conditions 

 indicated in Table I for Phoenix will be a close approximation to 

 those prevailing at this place. Plate I, figure 2, shows a character- 

 istic tree of the south row in fruit. 



THE POPE OLIVE PLANTATION, NEAR PALM SPRINGS, CAL. 



DESCRIPTION. 



In traveling over the Southern Pacific Railway from Los Angeles 

 to the east, one leaves the orange groves of Colton and Redlands to 

 ascend into a cooler region, an altitude of nearly 3,000 feet being 

 reached in the San Gorgonio Pass. Here, around Beaumont and 

 Banning, are flourishing orchards of prunes, peaches, and apricots, 

 watered from the perpetual snows of the San Bernardino Range, and 

 extensive barley fields moistened by the winter rains. A descent of 

 2,000 feet in 30 miles to Palm Springs station then brings one seem- 

 ingly into another country. A sparse growth of desert shrubs and 

 herbs in torrent-washed gravel and among bowlders replaces the 

 orchards and harvest fields, and instead of the refreshing breezes 

 from the snow-capped peaks there is much of the time a sand-laden 

 gale blowing so steadily down the valley that all the desert shrubs lie 

 prostrate and the drift of sand to the leeward of each makes it seem 

 to be marking a nameless grave. Just ahead lies a low range of hills, 

 their original rock formation barely suggested beneath the mantle of 

 sand that centuries of winds have heaped upon them. No landscape 

 could be in more striking contrast with that left behind at Colton and 

 Beaumont. 



Taking the trail to the southward from Palm Springs station for a 

 few miles carries one out of the sweep of the winds to a sheltered sec- 

 tion containing the picturesque little village of Palm Springs at the 

 site of the old Agua Caliente. (See map, fig. 1.) The Mission 

 Indian village lies on the east side of ''Inclian avenue" and a little 

 group of homes of the white settlers on the west, all nestling under 

 the shelter of the towering San Jacinto Mountain, whose two peaks, 

 San Jacinto and Cornell, are among the highest in southern Cali- 

 fornia. From a jagged rent in the eastern base of the mountain 

 issues an ice-cold stream of water, a brawling torrent when the 

 mountain showers are heavy or the snows are melting rapidly, but 

 sinking to a tiny rivulet at the end of the long desert summer, barely 

 sustaining life in the little oasis dependent upon it. In fact, during 



192 



