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PUBLISHER'S DEPARTMENT. 



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LOOKING FOR A HOME IN KERN DELTA COLONIES. 



A N eastern man recently wrote to a friend 

 * *- traveling in California concerning the 

 chances for settlers in the Kern Delta Colonies, 

 and received the following instructive reply: 



SAN FRANCISCO, December 15, 1893. 

 LORIN JOHNSON, EUREKA, ILL. : 



MY DEAR SIR: I just returned from Bakers- 

 field, Kern county, and other places in the San 

 Joaquin Valley, where I have been investigat- 

 ing the prospects for establishing a colony in 

 accordance with our plans made before I left 

 Illinois. I have met a great many people who 

 are familiar with the prices of irrigated lands 

 and the profits derived therefrom in Colorado, 

 Utah, Idaho and all parts of California. 



BAKERSFIELD. 



Bakersfield, the seat of Kern county, is about 

 300 miles south of San Francisco on the South- 

 ern Pacific Railroad, and nearly 200 miles 

 morth of Los Angeles. It is near the head of 

 the great San Joaquin Valley, and this valley, 

 as I wrote you before, is nearly one-fourth as 

 large as the entire State of Illinois. There is no 

 doubt but there will be another railroad built 

 to this place soon and a canal will ere long 

 extend from Stockton toward Bakersfield, thus 

 giving good shipping facilities for the product 

 raised in this county. The climate since my 

 arrival here has been such a contrast to the 

 climate of Illinois during this season of the 

 year that I much prefer remaining here until 

 next spring. Bakersfield is a new town about 

 five years old, but they have much better build- 

 ing than any county seat I have seen in 

 Illinois It is the most important one now be- 

 tween Fresno and Los Angeles, and many think 

 that it will in ten years be the largest town in 

 the great San Joaquin. Valley. 



KERN DELTA LANDS. 



I took a ride over the lands of the Kern 

 County Laud Company and was surprised to 

 find such a large body of fertile soil located in 



such a genial climate still unimproved, while 

 there are thousands of families in Illinois who 

 work hard through six months of the year in 

 order to produce enough to keep them during 

 the winter. Here the farmers can work almost 

 every day in the year. They have no dread of 

 severe winters, nor does the soil require so 

 much cultivation in order to produce a good 

 crop, as a large amount of the Illinois land does 

 that has been cultivated for twenty years or 

 longer. Then the farmer or fruit grower in 

 Kern county has no fear that he will not have 

 a sufficient amount of rain during the spring 

 months to give his crops a good start. Neither 

 does he worry about the excessive rain during 

 the summer months to destroy the crop when he 

 is harvesting it. He simply controls the water 

 question by turning the necessary amount from 

 the ditches when the growing crops need water 

 and turning it off when they have a sufficient 

 amount. If our friends who were first opposed to 

 locating on irrigated land could spend one day 

 here in harvest time and see the farmers cutting 

 their grain in one field while in the adjoining 

 vineyards and orchards the water was running 

 down the furrows to irrigate the vines and 

 trees, they would soon learn the advantages of 

 irrigation and what a poor substitute rain is 

 when compared with the artificial application 

 of water to all crops produced by the farmers. 



FROM THE SETTLER'S STANDPOINT. 

 Now in regard to locating in Kern county, I 

 find that we can purchase land here at from $60 

 to $100 per acre, depending on the location and 

 surroundings. If any of our friends prefer 

 leasing lands until they dispose of land in Illi- 

 nois, or until they are thoroughly satisfied with 

 the prospects in Kern county, they can obtain 

 them by paying seven per cent, on this valua- 

 tion. When ready to purchase they can obtain 

 the land by paying one-fourth cash and the re- 

 mainder in three, four and five years at the rate 



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