Fresno County 



WILLIAM ROBERTSON 

 Secretary Freiino County Chamber of Commeree 





SO much has been written and so much has been told about the won- 

 ders of Fresno County — her development, her wealth, and her great 

 prosperity that one naturally wants to know the reason of it all. 

 Briefly speaking, we may state that her wonderfully productive soil 

 and her splendid irrigating system (probably the finest in the world) 

 have been the main factors in these results. Our magnificent climate, har- 

 nessed to the two greatest necessary conditions, soil, and water, has pro- 

 duced results that have astonished the world. 



Fresno County is an empire in herself, covering an area of 5,696 miles, 

 comprising 3,587,840 acres and capable of raising anything that can be 

 produced anywhere from the Arctic to the semitropics, and the best of all 

 is that whatever she produces cannot be surpassed in quality or quantity. 



The exports of Fresno County last year approximated $20,000,000, 

 and that immense sum represents only a speck on the horizon of her future 

 greatness. Just think of it; here is a county capable of supporting 5,000,- 

 000 people, feeding them from her own products and paying them from 

 her own riches, and yet the extraordinary results she has achieved have 

 been accomplished with a population of 45,000, or about a one-hundred- 

 twentieth part of what she really could support, and this forms the strong- 

 est argument for the home-seeker to come within her boundaries. No 

 chance of failure, no fear of disaster from an investment. 



The marvelous development of this wonderful county keeps values 

 on the rise, and as we have succeeded in making Fresno one of the three 

 banner counties of California, we declare truthfully and positively that we 

 are only at the threshold of our success. Figures do not lie, and here 

 is some food for reflection: Exports from Fresno County in 1905, $20,- 

 000,000. Think carefully over these results, and remember that while 

 some neighboring counties were considered prosperous fifty years ago, 

 Fresno County was hardly on the map thirty years ago, and the main part 

 of this great work of transforming the desert into a veritable Garden of 

 Eden has been mainly accomplished in less than twenty years. What 

 has done it? Soil and water combined, and it requires no stretch of imag- 

 ination to reach the conclusion that the soil must be rich and the water 

 plentiful to produce these great results. 



Added to these advantages, we have an intelligent people, who have 

 used the county's wealth in part to further education, and in no district 

 of Uncle Sam's great domain can you find better or better-conducted 

 schools than in Fresno County, with her 127 school districts, her seven high 

 schools, two of which are affiliated with the State University, and 331 

 teachers. Her churches, her libraries, and every social avenue to intelli- 

 gence and refinement are used in advancing to the highest degree the 

 social excellence of this great county. 



The fruit-grower finds in Fresno County the most perfect conditions 

 for raising his crops, and in the raisin product he holds practically a mo- 

 nopoly, as five sixths of the raisins produced in America are raised in this 

 county, a condition which cannot be altered, because of the natural dryness 

 of climate, creating the most favorable conditions for drying grapes. 



It is impossible in the limited space of such an article as this to enter 

 into complete details of all the resources of Fresno County — her lumber, 

 mining, and manufacturing interests; her oil fields, which place her in pos- 

 session of a plentiful supply of one of the cheapest and best fuels in the 

 world; her unequaled facilities for cattle, hog, sheep, and horse raising. 

 But the interested reader who peruses this article will be supplied with any 

 definite data he may request on application to the secretary of the Fresno 

 County Chamber of Commerce, an official body having no land to sell 

 and no personal interest to conserve, its purpose being solely to publish to 

 the world advantages Fresno County affords to home-seeker and investor. 



