exceptionally good keepers, many of the orchardists keeping these winter 

 apples without proper storage facilities until apples are ripe the following 

 season. The fact that nearly all of this country is underlaid with a clay 

 subsoil has proven that a minimum of water only is required, thereby giving 

 die settler the benefit of having to provide only a small supply. 



Upon these northern slopes there lie nearly a half million acres of 

 extremely fertile soil. This territory stretches from the mesas well up on the 

 range and at an elevation of 3100 feet down across the various levels to 

 where the Mojave River disappears among the ever shifting sands. Its whole 

 area is approximately ninety miles in length, and through its center flowi 

 the Mojave River, which is the most permanent water supply in Southern 

 California. 



At the northern end of this area there has been some little development, 

 with prospects that a reasonably large acreage will ultimately be developed 

 there. 



Midway and near to the Salt Lake Route Station of Harvard a few 

 enterprising ranchers have located upon Government land and are proceed- 

 ing to develop wells and bring their lands to a producing condition. 



Upon either side of the Mojave River for the first forty- five miles of 

 its course the land rises in a series of mesas, or natural terraces, each one 

 of these various elevations being shut in by foothills, thus forming a series 

 of exceptionally beautiful little valleys. 



Underlying the greater portion of this territory a water plane of definite 

 altitude has been established. The result has been that during the last three 

 years the development of this section known as Victor Valley has been rapid 

 and permanent. Hundreds of wells have been drilled, among which the 

 percentage of failures has been practically nothing. The water lift in these 

 wells varies from thirty to one hundred and eighty feet and a practical dem- 



YOUNG ORCHARD IN BEARING, VICTOR VALLEY 



