CHAPTER XIII. 81 



This place used to be called Las Plores because the old sailors could 

 see the masses of golden poppies on that mesa clear from San Pedro 

 roadstead. I knew the mesa and the entire plain below it well, before 

 settlement. There was no barranca there, when I came early in 1880. 

 There was no wash, no torrent and no sign of any across the plain 

 below Las Flores. Then came settlement and clearing. The first 

 heavy rainfall, after the clearing, started the Monks Hill barranca and 

 carried a newly created torrent out over the valley. That was in 1884. 

 Every heavy rainfall since has increased its force and destructiveness. 

 Orchards, farms and gardens have been cut through and destroyed. 

 Bridges to the number of eight have had to be constructed just for 

 barrancas and cuts and temporary torrent flow. 



The Monks Hill barranca is twenty-three feet deep in one place. 

 The torrent now extends for miles in uncertain and destructive course. 

 This is a place very easily visited. It is just east of Pasadena, 

 and all the east and west roads cross it. Then there are still the old 

 settlers like Barney Williams, Charles Bell, P. M. Green, T. P. Lukens, 

 and a number of others who remember the time when there was no 

 barranca and no torrent. All along the foothills or mesa, one will find 

 the evidence of Increasing torrent action. There are several forcible 

 illustrations of this action just east of the one just cited. 



CONDITIONS OF OFF-FLOW. 



The effect of plowing or cultivation on off-flow seems to vary with 

 soils and grades. On level land, it probably increases the water-hold- 

 ing power of the land. On hilly land, this effect is doubtful. At Kin- 

 neloa there is an apricot orchard on a hillside, with a grade of one in 

 eight and a half feet. It was planted twenty years ago. 'The orchard 

 has always been prepared by grade furroughs for the rainy season and 

 no distinct wash has occurred. A piece of land by its side and with 

 the same grade was not cleared and has remained in chaparral. There is 

 today a difference of two feet between the cultivated and the brush 

 land. Two feet of the orchard surface is gone. The soil in the brush 

 is soft and spongy with the humus. Water does not run on it, steep as 

 it is. The orchard soil is hard, bakes easily and takes water with 

 slowness and difiBculty. A sharp rain will start little rills in the grade 

 furrows. 



Another interesting thing that has been demonstrated on this ranch, 

 which was originally covered with chaparral, is the fact that when It 



* Barranca, a deep large gully. 



