(54 



GLEANINGS IN liEE CULTURE. 



.Ian. 



JxlYgEItF WD MY ]\[EIGKBOI v g. 



NOTES OF TRAVEL. 



Hebccometb poor that dealeth with a slack hand: 

 bat the hand of the diligent maketh rich.— Pu. 10: 4. 



EPOB E going further I want to digress 

 a little to tell you a short story. 

 Twenty-five or thirty years ago a 

 young man started iii Chicago, sell- 

 ing illustrated cards with texts, and, 

 it I am correctly informed, a few other 

 notions and novelties. I am told that he 

 first started out with a half-bushel niarket- 

 basket. The basket was his own property, 

 and paid for; but the things it contained 

 were mostly sold on commission. This boy 

 was David C. Cook. Printed . matter for 

 Sunday-school work seems to have been his 

 hobby. I believe he was also quite an en- 

 thusiastic worker in the Sunday-schools. 

 In a little time he had amassed capital 

 enough not only to buy his stock outright, 

 but he got a little printing press, which he 

 used in a room of his own. Before anybody 

 knew it, almost, he was printing his own 

 cards, and some little Sunday-school papers 

 besides. If any of our readers can furnish 

 me a copy of some of those earlier publica- 

 tions. 1 should consider it a favor. By and 

 by he began to furnish lesson-helps for the 

 Sunday-schools all over the land : and then 

 came out the rive-cent edition of books that 

 had previously been sold for SI. 25 or more. 

 (.leanings has always been instrumental 

 in pushing the sale of these books. Many 

 thousands of T. S. Arthur's Ten Nights in a 

 Bar-room have been sold at only three cents 

 each. David C. Cook published them so we 

 bought them for about 2| cents each. When 

 his business became so large that he employ- 

 ed half a dozen great printing-presses, the 

 whole business world began to pick and find 

 fault with his cheap editions. Stories were 

 started that he was financially embarrassed, 

 and that he was about to make a failure. 

 The first I knew of it was in seeing friend 

 Cook's vigorous clips at his persecutors, 

 through the Sunday-school helps. It seem- 

 ed as though he had forgotten the little text 

 that had appeared so prominently on the 

 Sunday-school cards he used to peddle — 

 •Blessed are ye when men shall persecute 

 you and revile you for my sake."' I wrote 

 him a kindly letter in regard to the matter, 

 and remonstrated against placing before the 

 children of our Sunday-schools the state- 

 ment of how he had been wronged. He 

 wrote me a very kind letter by way of reply. 

 thanking me, and he gave me his promise 

 that nothing of the kind should again get 

 into his publications. I had forgotten all 

 about the matter until the day I was riding 

 with my friend •Tommy Irondale" up the 

 Piru Valley, on the way to friend Beason- 

 er's. My companion, however, had so much 

 to say in regard to a certain Mr. Cook, who 

 owned the valley for ten miles or more, that 

 I asked him what Cook he meant. 



•• Why, Mr. Boot, you have certainly heard 

 of David C. Cook, who published the Sun- 

 day-school literature ? '" 



" Why. to be sure I know David C. Cook, 

 the Sunday-school man. But he lives in 



Chicago, and has a tremendous big business. 

 Is this Cook any relation of his?'" 



■■ Why, bless your heart, this is David C 

 Cook himself, who owns this ranch. He 

 paid $60,000 for 12,000 acres of land, and this 

 is his town and store and meeting-house, 

 and there is where he lives. He has been 

 here all summer. If you would like to see 

 him. we will stop long enough to have a lit- 

 tle chat with him, if he is not too busy." 



We found on inquiry that Mr. Cook had 

 gone back to Chicago to see to business, but 

 that he was expected on the evening train. 

 But the foreman at the office kindly gave us 

 all the information he could. Forty-three 

 teams were plowing, harrowing, and culti- 

 vating, the day we w T ere there, in his differ- 

 ent fruit-orchards Four hundred acres 

 were being planted to oranges ; six hundred 

 more to tigs, olives, raisin-grapes, gnavas, 

 lemons, peaches, pears, apples, etc. Boads 

 were being made. Humes and aqueducts and 

 irrigating canals were being constructed 

 along the mountain-sides and through the 

 valleys, and a great enterprise was under 

 way." Mrs. Reasoner, where we stopped for 

 dinner, informed us that Mr. Cook himself 

 personally superintended their Sunday- 

 school every Sabbath, at the pretty little 

 church, when he was on the ranch. She 

 said she had been told he now pays taxes on 

 six millions of dollar*. When I suggested 

 that the Piru ranch would be entirely tem- 

 perance, the foreman smiled as he told me 

 that no inducement could persuade Mr. 

 Cook to even plant such grapes as are used 

 for making wine. When he sells lots to his 

 people, as of course he intended to do. a 

 deed is made out like the following, which 

 was, in fact, taken from a blank deed fur- 

 nished me by the foreman : 



It is provided and covenanted, as a covenant run- 

 ning- with the land, that if at any time said second 

 party, his heirs, assigns, or successor in interest, 

 shall, with the knowledge and consent of the owner 

 of said premises, use. or cause to be used, or shall 

 allow or authorize in any manner, directly or indi- 

 rectly, said premises, or any part thereof, to be 

 used for the purpose of vending; intoxicating liquors 

 for drinking purposes, whether said vending shall 

 be directly or under some evasive guise, thereupon 

 the title ' hereby granted shall revert to and be 

 vested in 



The best lejral talent has decided that the 

 provision in the deed is valid ; and that, up- 

 on its violation, the land reverts to the 

 original owner. 



I picked up one of his letterheads from 

 the desk. On it was a map of the ranch, 

 and the following : 



The Pird Rancho.— The "Piru" Kancho, or 

 Rancho "Temeseal." with adjacent purchases, em- 

 braces 13,743 acres of land in a body, situated partly 

 in Ventura and partly in Los Angeles counties. Cal- 

 ifornia. The lower end of the ranch is crossed by 

 the Southern Pacific R. R . being two and one-half 

 miles from Camulos station and postoffice, and mid- 

 way between Los Angeles and Santa Barbara. It is 

 a mountain-valley ranch, containing about 1800 

 acres of valley hind, the rest plowaMe hill laud, 

 with a rich soil one hundred to one ihousand feet 

 deep, and steep grazing mountain land. The Piru 

 River runs through four and one-half miles of the 

 ranch, furnishing- ample water for irrigating valley- 

 lands. It was formerly a part of the " Camulos 

 Mission" Rancho, the home of "Ramona," cele- 

 brated for its fine olives and oranges, and has, ow- 

 ing to location, a climate suited to the most delicate 

 trees and plants, making- it especially adapted for 

 fine fruit-growing, to which the present owner in- 



