I 



^■rondrous bloom. Our eschscholtzias, our calochortus, or Mariposa lilies, 

 ^^ur wonderful Romneya, or "crepe poppy," our weird cacti, our magnifi- 

 cent conifers, all have made reputation abroad for us among flower-growers, 

 while every year adds new triumphs for the hybridizers who, following in the 

 way of the wizard of Santa Rosa, are constantly adding new blossoms to 

 our already long list of garden favorites. The fact that we have what 

 ^Benjamin Ide Wheeler has aptly termed "forty-nine dooryard climates" 

 ^prithin forty-nine miles of any given point makes it possible for us to grow 

 ^ut-of-doors plants from almost any part of the world, and there is nothing 

 that gives me greater personal pleasure than to take some notable botanist 

 or flower-grower from foreign lands, as has often been my privilege, through 

 a, few of our simple home gardens and hear their exclamations of surprise 

 and delight at the rare plants that have been collected together from the 

 ends of the earth and which are grown so easily and at so little expense. 



FARMS OF CALIFORNIA 



CL^RENCK E. EDWORDS 

 Of The California Promotion Committee 



I 



WITH forty million acres of her land arable, and with ten million 

 more of the so-called desert land waiting only the coming of 

 water in irrigation ditches to make them blossom and bear fruit, 

 California presents a wonderful field for the home-seeker in the 

 way of agriculture. The remaining fifty million acres of mountain 

 and non-arable desert forms an immense pasture, where cattle and sheep 

 may find feed in unlimited quantity and unsurpassed quality. 



California land is peculiar in that it presents greater opportunities than 

 are to be found elsewhere. The soil of California is of such richness that 

 it will grow more to the seeding than any other soil, and the climate is so 

 beneficent that it will permit of more crops than any other land. Here we 

 have the elements which go to make the perfect agricultural land. It is a 

 recognized fact among agriculturists that "everything will grow in Cali- 

 fornia." Not only is this true, but with the same methods of farming 

 here as are in vogue elsewhere the farmer will get double results. It must 

 be remembered in this connection that California methods are not different 

 from those of other lands. The farmer who comes to California from 

 some other country has nothing to unlearn and nothing to learn so far 

 as farming methods are concerned. 



Irrigation means much to the California farmer. It means a constant 

 crop and a diversified crop. Extensive grain farming in California is grad- 

 ually giving way to the small farm on which Is raised a diversified crop. 

 The big wheat fields of twenty years ago are rapidly passing, and the 

 great tracts of land are being cut up into small tracts. The land must now 

 be made to produce the high-priced crops, and there is no product to be 

 found in all the world that cannot be produced in California on some of 

 its farms. Twenty acres of good California land — and there is little that 

 is not good — will give a man all the comforts of life. Under present con- 

 ditions in California the small farmer enjoys the most attractive home life. 

 He has his ground under the highest state of cultivation; he is in close con- 

 nection with his neighbors by telephone; he has electric light and power 

 for his house and farm buildings; he has rapid transit to nearby cities; he 

 has his neighbors so close that it is better than If he were in a city; he has 

 his schools, the best in the land, where his children may be educated ac- 

 cording to the most modern methods. Above all, he has his three hundred 

 and sixty-five days in the year when he and his family can enjoy "all out 

 doors" and when his stock fare equally as well. 



