PUBLISHER'S DEPARTMENT. 



HOflESEEKERS AND KERN COUNTY. 



THE march of the home-seeker into the fertile val- 

 leys of California moves on apace. There 

 never was a time since irrigation became a factor in 

 the industrial life of this State when progress was 

 so marked as in these spring days of 1894. There 

 are many reasons for this. One of them is that mill- 

 ions of people realized for the first time at the 

 World's fair last summer the substantial basis on 

 which the fame of California rests. They saw in the 

 beautiful State building, whose very architecture car- 

 ried a suggestion of things semi-tropical, the meaning 

 of that well-worn phrase, " The glorious climate of 

 California.' 1 They realized that climate has a corn- 



property of the Kern County Land Company, at the 

 head of the San Joaquin valley. It is perfectly nat- 

 ural that this company should receive hundreds of 

 applications from home-seekers at this time. It is the 

 proprietor of the greatest irrigated farm in the world, 

 which is now being divided into thousands of little ir- 

 rigated farms. It is watered by a colossal irrigation 

 system, which is at the same time remarkable for its 

 simplicity. The lands are held at prices much below 

 those asked for the small tracts in other parts of the 

 State ; as in the case of the larger enterprise it is de- 

 sirable to encourage a more rapid settlement. It is 

 well to consider what the settler can most profitably 



THIRTY ACRE TRACT OF ALMONDS, ONE YEAR OLD. 



mercial value in connection with the products of the 

 soil. This stupendous advertisement gave force and 

 point to that desire which exists in almost every 

 mind the desire to some time visit the Pacific coast. 

 The second great reason for the present movement 

 is found in the dormant industries of the East. 

 Thousands of people who have been uniformly busy 

 heretofore find themselves in partial or total idleness. 

 They have money enough to buy a small farm, but 

 not money enough to enable them to live without 

 steady employment. The result of these two in- 

 fluences is a large emigration from the eastern States 

 to the irrigated districts of California. 



THEY ARE GOING TO KERN DELTA. 



One of the localities which is conspicuously before 

 the eastern mind in this connection is the great 



176 



grow, and the list of productions covers a very wide 

 range. 



A TYPE OF CALIFORNIA. 



Kern county is very fairly representative of Cali- 

 fornia in soil, climate and possibilities of develop- 

 ment. All the advantages are seldom concentrated 

 at one point, and there are places in Southern Cali- 

 fornia which present some advantages that are less 

 marked in Kern county. Such localities, however, 

 always have compensating disadvantages very fre- 

 quently meagerness of water supply, or the high cost 

 of making it available. The soil and climate are 

 good enough everywhere on the coast, but the water 

 supply for irrigation purposes is the great indispens- 

 able factor. Kern county is abundantly blessed with 

 water, not only in its large river, but in numerous 



