The San Diego, California Exposition 



Three years dgo, in the heart nf the city ul San 

 Diego, Cal., tliere was a fourteen hundred acre tract of 

 land on which there was not a single building. Neither 

 was there much in the way of foliage. For longer than 

 the memory of man that tract of land had been un- 

 touched by water, except by the rare rainfalls which 

 strike the city. As a result, the adobe soil was packed 

 hard and seared by the almost constant sun. In the 

 canyons and on the mesa there grew iiotiiiug save 

 cactus and sagebrush and chapparal. On one side of 

 the mesa was a scattered grove of pepper trees, 

 battling desperately for life without any assis- 

 tance in the way of water. 



That was three years ago. Today on lliat 

 mesa stands a gorgeous city of old Spain, and 

 the land about the buildings, even down to the 

 depths of the canyons, is covered with a thick 

 growth of semi-tropical foliage, with lofty trees 

 and spreading shrubs and low bushes, through 

 wdiose deep green flashes the crimson of poin- 

 settia, and the tecoma. and the bright gold of 

 the California poppy. The magic garden has 

 taken the place of the desert. He who saw the 

 land tiiree years ago and sees it again today, 

 would think that some modern .Maddin had 

 come this way and rubbed his lamjj ; but the 

 only wand which the magician of San Diego 

 used is known more commonly as a spade, or 

 a trowel, or a garden hose. 



The effect, however, is as tremendous a> tlu- 



canyon, over the roofs of the city of San Diego, into 

 the Harbor of the Sun, and across to the strand of 

 Coronado to the marine and aviation camps on North 

 island, and to the rugged outline of Point Loma with 

 the bristling guns at P'ort Rosecrans. .\long the out- 

 line of the Coronado Islands, and about them, and 

 thousands i>f miles beyond, stretches the silvery sur- 

 face of the Pacific. Over the other parapet of the 

 bridge, and beyond the canyon as it winds its way 

 thr.mgh fertile valleys of olive and urange ;ind grape. 



IN TIIK r.OTANIC.\r. r,.\RI)EX— I.OOKIN'O ,\lROSS TliK LA(H'XIT.\, 



effect of old-time sorcery, .\cross the deepest parts of t'.ic 

 Canyon CaI:)rillo, the engineers threw a majestic quar- 

 ter-mile bridge of .seven arches, the piers rising from 

 the depths of a laguna in the canyon one hundred and 

 thirty-five feet below. It is over this mighty viaduct, 

 the Puenta Cabrillo, that a great part of the visitors 

 to San Diego's 1915 Exposition march on their way to 

 the sights v\'ithin the old stone gate by La Puerta del 

 Oeste. 



From that viaduct, a most comiuanding view is seen. 

 Over the side parapet, one looks down the winding 



Photos copyi-ighted by Panam,-l Califorria Expoj^ition. 



like the foothills of the snow-capped Sierras, 

 and to the table lands of old Mexico. 



i'.elow, is the floral work wdiich man, working 

 hand in hand with a most beneficent nature. 

 has placed in the sjjot that was once a desert. 

 .\long the edge of the Puente stands a grove of 

 Italian and Monterey cypress, the slim outlines 

 I if the trees accentuating the height of the bridge 

 itself. I'.eyond this is a great patch of acacia 

 of different kinds, varying all the way from 

 darker greens to tlie green tlnat is almost steel 

 gray of the acacia and bailyana. Pieyond the 

 acacia are a few of the two hundred varieties 

 iif eucalyptus, the blue gum and the red gum 

 and the iicifolia with its blaze of brilliant red. 



Then come the palms — tall ones of the cocos 

 pluosa variety, the thick-bodied phoenix, and the 

 graceful swainsonia, and a score of others. 

 There is a succession of other trees with bright 

 l)Iooming flowers scattered among them. Along 

 Ihe main bridge from the West gate are copse of abelia 

 and fuchsia, of canna and e.scallonia. grevillea and lepto- 

 soermum : the bright orange of the lantana gleams 

 through the hedges. These are the plants which are used 

 extensively for broad display features. 



Within the grounds an entirely new array appears. 

 .Along the Prado, lined with its double row of black- 

 acacia and the thick green lawn, stretches a hedge ()f 

 coprosma with its waxy green leaves interspersed with 

 the triumphant crimson of the poinsettia. 



The most extraordinary floral work on the grounds, 

 however, is that which is to be found in the Botanical 



