THE RAISIN INDUSTRY. 203 



is the beautiful plantation on the railroad reservation. Fine green 

 lawns, fountains, beds of evergreens and flowers, the whole inclosed in 

 pepper trees, gives the traveler immediately the impression that some- 

 thing beautiful in the way of gardening can be accomplished, where 

 there is only a will and a taste. Such beautiful places everywhere in 

 the South show that the people who came here, came not alone to 

 make money, but also to enjoy life and to cultivate those'pleasures and 

 occupations which help to prolong and beautify the same. 



From Colton up to San Bernardino the whole country is settled up 

 and resembles the outskirts of a large city, where the business men 

 have their suburban residences. The level and gradually sloping 

 mesa is dotted over with little hills and knolls, just the place for a resi- 

 dence. Every such place has been taken advantage of, and fine resi- 

 dences with towers, balconies and airy awnings crown every little 

 eminence, each one through its peculiar situation seemingly domin- 

 ating the valley. 



San Bernardino has been greatly benefited by the boom. The old 

 and the new are there in strong contrast, the new decidedly predomi- 

 nating. Magnificent brick blocks grace the principal business streets, 

 and the nearest streets crossing them, blocks that must have cost large 

 suras of money, and which for design and substantial structure can 

 nowhere be surpassed in any city of this size* The fine large hotels 

 erected lately are kept up with style and even splendor. The large 

 Stewart House is not inferior to the best town hotel that can be seen 

 anywhere, and its interior arrangements, with a large covered court, 

 are most admirable. My stay in San Bernardino was only too short ; 

 a long stroll around town and a little longer shake hands with the 

 veteran journalist and horticulturist, I,. M. Holt, took all the time I 

 had to spare. 



From San Bernardino to Redlands is but half an hour's ride through 

 the bottom lands of the Santa Ana river. We approach rapidly the 

 upper end of the valley, where the elevated mesa spreads out all around 

 like a perfect atnpitheater, backed by the loftiest mountains in Southern 

 California. The mesa is now in close view, and Redlands, I^ugonia, 

 Terracina, Crafton, all different points of the same settlement, lie in 

 front of us at an elevation of about fifteen hundred feet above the sea, 

 like a map or extensive panorama, where roads, orchards and houses 

 are so clearly and distinctly seen that they can be observed at a glance. 

 The mesa land here slopes about four hundred feet to the mile, and 

 the different orchards or settlements lie apparently one above the 

 other, all in full view. If I am asked for the place in this part of the 

 country with the finest view, with the freshest air, with the purest 

 water, and with the coolest breezes, and where business and the com- 

 forts of life can be combined, I will say, and say it again, Redlands. 

 In all these points there is nothing here that surpasses it, and few are 

 the places indeed that even can pretend to equal it. From whatever 

 point we stand, be it at the lower end of the railroad depot, at any 

 orchard or home in the center of the settlement, or at the upper end 

 close to the rolling hills, from every point we see every other point, 

 some below, some above us, all equally distinct. And this extensive 

 and magnificent view, that requires no tedious and tiresome climbing 



