418 RESOURCES OF CAT, IFORNIA. 



them speak English fluently. The English language will be 

 the predominant tongue, although German will long be cher- 

 ished. The number of residents is now three hundred, with 

 a certainty that they must rapidly increase. Anaheim is a 

 tract of land a mile wide by a mile and a half long, in the 

 valley of the Santa Anna River, Los Angeles county. It was 

 unoccupied, and supposed to be of little value in 1857, when 

 it was bought for two dollars an acre by a German company 

 of fifty members, mostly residing in San Francisco. They 

 were incorporated as a joint-stock association. The land, con- 

 taining one thousand one hundred and sixty-eight acres, was 

 divided into fifty lots of twenty acres each, with a little town- 

 plat in the middle, and convenient streets. The place was given 

 in charge of a superintendent, who held his position two years, 

 in which time he planted and cultivated eight acres of every 

 lot with vines, and put willow hedges (nearly all the fences in 

 Los Angeles county are of willow) all around the outer boun- 

 dary of the tract, and along the principal streets inside. Dur- 

 ing a large part of the time he hired fifty laborers. The total 

 expense for the two years was seventy thousand dollars, or 

 one thousand four hundred dollars per lot of twenty acres, 

 including eight acres of vine. The owner of a vineyard lot 

 had a little town-lot of half an acre besides. In December, 

 1859, the property was divided by lot among the members, 

 many of whom have now removed to the place and made their 

 home there. There are nearly six hundred acres lying vacant, 

 and the welfare of the vineyards requires that this land should 

 be cultivated, for now it is covered with weeds and brush, and 

 is the home of innumerable hares, squirrels, and gophers, which 

 eat the vines, young trees, and grapes. When cultivated and 

 irrigated, these pests will be drowned out and driven oif, and 

 the labor of the vine-grower will be much reduced upon the 

 land now under tillage. When the whole tract shall be filled 

 with bearing vines, it will produce twice as much wine as the 

 town of Los Angeles does now, and nearly as much as that 

 town will be able to produce when all its present vines shall 



