THE MAKING OF VAL VERDE COLONY. 



THE MOST REMARKABLE PROPOSITION IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA. 



J. W. NANCE. 



r ~pHE colony-builder is having a busy season in 

 1 Southern California. The first boom in this 

 Italy of America was based on climate and town lots. 

 The second era of growth is based on climate and ir- 

 rigated farms. Now, climate alone cannot produce 

 anything on a town lot, but climate has a great deal 

 to do with the production of things on the irrigated 

 farm. Everywhere in the West the day of specula- 

 tion is succeeded by the day of industrialism, by 

 which is meant a period when capital and human 

 energies are directed to the making of realities rather 

 than the creation of fictitious values. 



This industrial epoch has come to Southern Cali- 

 fornia earlier than to other portions of the ar.id West, 

 for the logical reason that here the first preliminary 

 fever of speculation was contracted and cured earlier 

 than elsewhere. To-day Southern California is in the 

 very tide of development, while elsewhere the chan- 

 nels of trade show the feeblest pulse in two decades. 

 At first thought this seems anomalous, but just the 

 contrary is true. Colonies are springing up in Cali- 

 fornia not in spite of our idle industries, but because 

 of them. 



LOOKING FOR PROSPERITY. 



In the eastern and middle States thousands of peo- 

 ple who have formerly added something each Saturday 

 night to their savings account are now drawing upon 

 the slender principal. They have not much confidence 

 in an early and enduring revival of business, as condi- 

 tions existing throughout the world do not seem to fa- 

 vor it. Their small capital cannot be invested at home 

 in such a manner as to earn them a living. Farming 

 under precarious rainfall requires a large acreage 

 and involves the discomforts and loneliness of life in 

 a sparsely settled country. The problem, How shall 

 we improve our condition V seriously confronts these 

 people to-day for the first time in their lives. And 

 when intelligent people bring their minds to bear 

 upon it they discover that there is but one satisfac- 

 tory answer. This is to go to Arid America. There 

 a very little money will go a very long way to pur- 

 chase a farm, for there a farm is a matter of ten or 

 twenty acres. That means not only a small invest- 

 ment. It means near neighbors, and that banishes 

 the ugly spectre of loneliness from country life. It 

 means intense production from each acre, for in the 

 arid region God furnishes the blue sky and the un- 

 hampered sunshine and man borrows the water from 

 the neighboring mountain peaks. He applies it just 

 when, just where and in just such amount as the best 

 knowledge and experience tell him. That makes 

 farming a science and lends to it a new fascination 

 in the eyes of intelligent men. This means also the 

 utmost diversification of crops, since with irrigation 

 everything is produced with equal facility. These 

 are the advantages of irrigation wherever it is prac- 

 ticed in arid countries, but if one is going to the far 

 new West another question arises, and that is, Where 

 is the best place to go ? The answer to this is still 

 easier. 



SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA THE GOAL. 



Every State and Territory has peculiar advantages, 

 but the ideal conditions for prosperous and satisfying 

 home-making exist only in Southern California. If 

 you look at a relief map of this region you will think 

 that it consists exclusively of mountains. The little 

 green valleys that nestle between the giant hills seem 

 insignificant, indeed, in comparison with the expanses 

 of the imperial Mississippi valley. And they are, 

 indeed, but slender marks upon the map by com- 

 parison. But this has a mighty meaning to the man 

 who is buying land. The amount of tillable soil is 

 sharply limited by the mountain ranges, and the 



