The Raisin Industry: A practical treatise on the raisin grapes, their history, culture and curingEisen, Gustavus A.
History
The Raisin Industry: A practical treatise on the raisin grapes, their history, culture and curing
Eisen, Gustavus A.
Raisins; Viticulture -- California
Tustin is only two or three miles away, nearer the hills. The car, an
open one with many seats, winds its way under shady lanes on either
side, bordered by large and graceful pepper trees covered with spicy and
fragrant blossoms. Here and there we see alongside the pavement an
enormous sycamore tree, a monument of olden days and the native
vegetation of the country. On both sides of the avenue are sidewalks of
cement, and they who prefer walking can do so for miles under the shady
trees without getting dusty or becoming heated by the sun. These
sidewalks are marvels of beauty and comfort. On one side are old and
graceful trees with drooping limbs, on the other are well-kept cypress
hedges trimmed square and even, or long natural barriers of
ever-blooming geraniums in numerous varieties, of every favorite shade
of color from crimson to palest pink. Over the hedges we look into
blue-grass lawns, green and well kept and exceedingly attractive.
Suddenly we are in the middle of Tustin City. A beautiful, even
magnificent bank building on one corner, a store on the opposite, two or
three smaller shops and the inevitable splendid and elaborate hotel, and
the town is fully described. Immediately adjoining are the beautiful and
evergreen lawns and trees,--the city and country actually combined.
A trip to Orange reveals the very same features, only we pass through a
more fertile country, with vineyards and orchards on every side, orange
groves of various ages, walnut orchards, fields of tall corn, peanuts,
beans and melons. Between all wind the shaded avenues with pepper and
gum, cypress, pine or yellow flowering grevillea. The soil is everywhere
of the richest kind, of a color between ashy green and chocolate.
Nowhere have we seen such magnificent Indian corn,--whole fields where
the stalks are from twelve to sixteen feet high. Orange is a more
pretentious town than Tustin, but hardly any more beautiful, and far
less secluded and quiet. There are two large and fine hotels, the one of
brick being in town, while the other, the family hotel, lies in the
suburbs in bowers of evergreen trees and gardens. In the middle of the
town there is a plaza with a fountain and an exquisite little garden
well planned and better kept. The lawns are like the softest velvet, and
are bordered with blue and green flowers, with beds of sweetest
mignonette, while bananas and palms spread their stately foliage in the
center.
The climate of this part of Southern California is excellent. The
thermometer stands at midday at eighty in the shade; in the evening
there is always a breeze. Many of those I meet complain as usual, and
greet me with the inevitable, “How warm it is to-day,” and our as
inevitable answer is, that we cannot feel it, and that it just seems
delightful to us. People here observe and feel the changes of
temperature much more than we do farther north. With us they share the
habit of complaining even if there is nothing to complain of.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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