THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA 



These are the valuable lessons which may be set against 

 the failures and disappointments of the last two dec- 

 ades. 



In the stormy and heroic days of the gold epoch, of the 

 Bear Flag, of the American conquest, and of the vigi- 

 lance committees, southern California played a small 

 part. Its past is the dreamy memory of old mission 

 days, of peaceful shepherds, of great haciendas, of a land 

 dominated by Spanish folk and speech. The land was a 

 desert of sage-brush and cactus, in which a few scattered 

 mission gardens made charming oases. Along moist 

 river-bottoms there were sometimes fields and gardens, 

 though not of the highest type. On the uplands light 

 crops of wheat and barley were occasionally harvested, if 

 spring rains happened to be fairly generous. But it was, 

 apparently, a country which offered nothing to the 

 stranger save climate and scenery. To this barren place 

 came irrigation and the Anglo-Saxon, bringing a new 

 era in their train. 



The evolution of southern California may be studied 

 in the experience of two representative colonies. These 

 are Anaheim and Riverside. Both were undertaken by 

 comparatively poor men, and made important contribu- 

 tions to the permanent prosperity of the district in which 

 they settled. The success which they achieved and the 

 methods by which they accomplished it colored and 

 shaped the larger institutions which grew from these 

 pioneer plantings. Anaheim owes its historical impor- 

 tance to the fact that it was the mother colony, but it 

 gains added interest as an example of the way in which 

 a number of petty capitalists may combine their means 

 in large enterprises. It is useful, too, as showing the 



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