Editorial 



WITH the present number of FOR CALIFORNIA the series of Coun- 

 ties Numbers comes to a close. It was begun last October, the 

 object being to give a complete resume of the conditions and 

 advantages in every part of California. The entire number of 

 articles, fifty-seven in all, have been contributed by writers thor- 

 oughly familiar with the areas they described. The information contained, 

 besides being authentic, has in every case been carefully selected and 

 edited, with a view to giving the reader the gist and essentials of the sub- 

 ject he may be investigating. 



Nothing could be more typical of California than the frontispiece of 

 the present issue. The "Big Trees" — the Sequoia gigantea — are the 

 Titans of the vegetable world, and are found nowhere on earth outside 

 of the Pacific Slope. In their immensity and grandeur they seem a fit 

 embodiment of the California ideal — of vastness, of opulence, of the rich 

 gifts of nature to man, and of resources inexhaustible. In this allegorical 

 sense the Big Trees may well be regarded as the collective frontispiece 

 of the entire series of County Numbers. 



The present number of FOR CALIFORNIA describes twelve counties, 

 ten out of the number belonging distinctly to the Sierran side of the great 

 Interior valley. Their eastern districts lie amid the alpine reaches of the 

 High Sierras, a region second to none on earth in scenic grandeur; an 

 uplifted world of snowclad peaks, of limpid lakes, of roaring cataracts, and 

 of expansive timber tracts; a region interspersed throughout with cattle 

 pastures and mountain dairies, with profitable mines and enormous lum- 

 bering enterprises. Westward these Sierran counties trend, in their middle 

 portion, through the famous red-soiled foothill country, that lies in the 

 remarkable "thermal belt" of the interior valley, and boasts of an early 

 seasonal output of semi-tropical and citrus fruits. And finally, in com- 

 pletion of their widely diversified resources, these counties, in their west- 

 ern third, reach the deep-soiled and level expanses of the Sacramento plain. 

 Here most of the fruit-raising possibilities of the foothills are repeated, 

 with the addition of an unsurpassed capacity for the production of the 

 cereals. Also the streams, which farther east furnish already electric cur- 

 rents of two hundred thousand horse-power, in their later courses become 

 navigable rivers which these counties utilize in reaching the San Francisco 

 markets. 



San Bernardino County, lying beyond the divide, and to the south and 

 east of the region just considered, is in many respects unique. Character- 

 istically an arid land, yet this "Mother of Irrigation" is being made to 

 bloom with an exceeding profit in many parts by scientific and modern 

 methods of water distribution. And its mining output, already consid- 

 erable, does not begin to represent its possibilities in this direction. 



Solano is the typically opulent produce county of the western side of 

 the valley. Its truly astonishing capacity, both as to quantity and diver- 

 sity of product, needs no recapitulation upon this page. Perhaps the most 

 suggestive single fact in connection with Solano is that already given, — 

 that she "can show millionaires who have amassed their wealth directly 

 from her grain-fields, and still reside at the scenes of their labors." 



These six numbers, comprising the County Series, are well worth 

 binding as convenient reference material on the State. They will be fur- 

 nished while they last at ten cents the copy, or fifty cents for the set of six. 



