The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, December 25, 1895, Page 38

| S e s e e 38 THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL, WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 25, 1895. struck betwixt the productive and the consuming power of the people of the United States. There must be a foreign market for a considerable part of our prod- uce, or no market at all for it. Therefore competition with the rest of the world can- not be altogether avoided by erecting a Chinese wall about our own country. The American farmer must compete abroad, if not at home, with the entire agricul- tural world. There is no escaping such competition. In what plight is our American farmer to meet the competition above outlined as imminent if not inevitable? From ocean to ocean and from lakes to gulf he has al- ready despoiled the soil of its virginity. Its forests have been denuded and the streams are drying up. Floods follow droughts and droughts freshets for want of wooded areas to- retard evaporation and conserve the waters until they are needed. Irrigation js 1n its infancy and alaw inconsistent with it is supreme in our land. Ranges have been overstocked and grasses eaten out until the American farmer is no longer able to rear young stock to a fattening ave, and our National Secretary of Agricul- ture recommends the abolition of the tar- 1if on importations of stock cattle in order that American farmers may have cattie to jeed. More than 63,000 Mexican cattle were imported auring the first half of this vear. In fine, the generation which is passing has loaded posterity with bonded debt, skinned their heritage of its first fer- nd is making its ignoble exit into 1 amid howls of calamity. the now historic language of our President, it is a condition and not a theory which confronts the agricultural interests of America. There is no es- caping the issne. The law of adaptation to condition will admit of no excuses. It is adapt or die; and Low to adapy, I take it, is the real theme of this agricultural symposium. With a rich soil, a genial climate and a limitless range for predatory herds *‘any fool can farm,” but confine a man to a skimmed patch of earth and his cattle to within their master’s landmarks, and a man has got to be a man to make a living such as every American deems his due. The close of this century will, almost without exceptior, see this the status of iltural America, and the sons of n soil who do not make them- selves equal to the exigency will, with such modifications as a purer Christianity may impose, be to American landlords what the thralls were to the Saxons and the Helots were to the Greeks. The victory in the stress of agricultural life will fall to him who can produce the most and the best at the lowest cost, and, as the Secretary of Agriculture has aptly remarked, “the issue will depend upon mental rather tl manual effort.” The average yield per acre of wheat in the United States for the ten years preced- ing 1890 was 12 bushels, and such a yield ut‘lrresent prises would barely return the cost of production. But at Tulare experi- mental station, with grounds plowed and cross-plowed and pulverized almost to dust, seed selected and sowed in drills six apart and, although the grain was rrigated and the rainfall did not ex- ceed 12 inches for the entire year, the yield of different varieties of wheat ranged all the way from 69 to 85 bushels to the acre, or more properly speaking, at that rate for the parcels sowed. Atone of the stations in Wyoming three years of successive ex- periments have raised the average yield of wheat from 19 bushels common to the State, to bushels at the stations. The Agricultural Department records show that the average yield of Indian corn in the United States for the past twenty- five years does not exceed twenty-five bushels to the acre, and vet at a station in old and well-worn Pennsylvania by plant- ing good kernels six inches apart one way and forty-two inches the other, a yield of sixty-nine bushels to the acre was ob- tained, and I have myself seen a Kansas acre that was carefully seeded, thoroughly prepared and cultivated, yiela 115 bush- els of good corn in the ear when many ad- jacent fields were filled with nubbins. The crying need of the stock industry is forage. With more than half the area of our country unfit for any purpose other than growth of forest or forage, we are already under the necessity of importing stock cat- tle because we have not forage sufficient to enable our farmers to rear their own young stock to a feeding age. If, in what has preceded, the object I had in view has been attained, I have shown, not without some emphasis, the absolute necessity for the large and con- stant employment of scientific experiment m agriculture. In no department of human affairs is intelligent and scientific method more likely to prove satisfactory in results than in tilling the soil. Nature is loth to adapt herself to uncongenial con- ditions and she has no compassion for even innocent ignorance of what her conditions are. A few years ago hundreds of acresof Tulare lands, illy adapted to the purpose, were set to vines with the incidental con- sequence that I am kept warm as I write this by the burning of grape-roots in my grate. Hundreds of thousands of dollars were wasted and hundreds of people were impoverishea primarily because they did not know what manner of soil the raisin grape required, and thisis only one of a thousand instances of the pitiful conse- quences of a lack of accurate knowledee of nature’s laws. But how is the farmer to learn things which are needful to know? This is the crux of the question. Fairs devoted to horseracing will not teach him, and not all farmers’ sons can receive instruction at agricultural colleges when there is only one to a State. Industrial instruction, in lieu of what is familiarly called higher ed- ucation, should, so it seems to me, form a part of or an adjunct to a common school education; but public sentiment is not ripe for this. Philanthropy is nobly pro- viding for the industrial needs of the boys of the cities and philanthropy seldom dis- covers a need that it does not fill. All the real progress of the world has been made by the timely and unstinted contributions of broad-minded men of means, and can- not pkilanthropy be made to see the need of an experimental farm and elementary agricuitura! and industrial school in each county in each State. Leta few institu- tions of that character be established by private philanthropy and the pubiic will not be slow to adopt the system, perfect it and make it part of the industrial life of our Nation. It was so that public schoois, hospitels, asylums and homes for the in- firm came into being. There was a time when agriculture was highly esteemed in our country, when the best brains and hearts of the Nation were devoted to that interest. That time wiil come again, but it will come by education rather than by politics. Chummy—What would you think of a man that always went around talking to himself? Gruffly—I should say if he did it to listen to himself he was a fool; if he did it to avoid listening to his friends he was a gepius, and if he did it to save his friends trom listening to him he was a philanthropist.—Truth, agrict The Beet Sugar Industry on the Pacific Coast. Written for ¢The Call’”’ By Richard Gird. No important food product is so thor- oughly the result of scientific research and experimental methods continued through a long series of years for a definite pur- pose to a definite end as beet sugar. When we consider that commencing with the original plant then grown only for food, and carrying not more than 5 or 6 per cent of sugar; that by careful selec- tion and cultivation for a period of less than a hundred years, the sugar content | has increased to 14 and 15 per cent, or more than double; that the chemist and | mechanical engineer has, during the same time, discovered methods and wvlans | whereby the viscid, sticky, bad tasting and smelling juices are extracted from the root, and by one continuous process, partly chemical and partly mechanical, lasting not more than twenty-four hours, during which time the beets are not touched by hand, they are transferred into tablished under my own supervision, is so absolutely at variance with all the re- corded experience of European experts that perhaps it is worth'a somewhat de- tailed description, inasmuch as there is absolutely no rainfall during the beet- growing season and most of the crop from the time of planting to the time of harvest- ing is without one drop of moisture except what it derives from the soil and atmos- phere. In 1888 I commenced a series of experi- ments lasting over a period of three years, which I had carefully recorded, and which, together with a thorough study of all available sources of information, en- abled me to demonstrate that the culture of the sugar beet could be conducted both successfully and profitably in Southern California. My experiments were con- ducted as follows: I divided the area of land on which I was about to experiment (about 20,000 acres) into sections according to its qual- ity and conditions, and found, perhaps, as many different kinds of soils and condi- tions as will be found anywhere, from the | coarse detritus, or drifted debris of the | granite slope of the Sierra Madre, at the | southern base of which these lands are sit- uated, following down the slope to the center of the great Chino Valley, where | we find the coarse and finer sediments | merging nto the black sanay loam (the | ideal beet land), until we arrive at the bottom of the valley, where we have a rich vegetable mold with a base of clay. In the spring I planted experimental patches in diffetent parts and different kinds of soil, planting a new patch every | two weeks and making them a uniform l size of one rod square, continuing plant- %//4 RICHARD GIRD, THE CHINO HORSE BREEDER. [Drawn by a “Call” artist from a photograph.] the purest and whitest of sugar, and that , at the rate of 800 to 1000 tons per day the beets are manufactured into 100 tons or | more of sugar, according to the percentage | of sugar in the beet; and that by the joint | efforts of the tiller of the soil, the chemist | in hislaboratory, the mechanic in his shop, | this not-long-since plebeian root has be- | ing from February to June, or as long as there was any possible expectation of get- ting results. As near as possible the reg- ular field culture was followed, and the growth and charactenistics of the different varieties carefully noted. Samples of the most approved German and French vari- ties of seed were used, and as the beets come the source from which three-fifths of the world’s supply of sugar is produced, and by reason of which the wornout soils and overpopulated countries of the 0ld World are enabled once more to make their fields economically productive, 1al ing from the air rather than from the soii the hydrocarbon substance we call sugar— | we are filled with amazement. The beet, as to its sugar contents, is an air feeder, absorbing the hydrocarbon direct from the air. A French agricultural report some years since spoke of the 80,- 000,000 francs income from tax on sugar as so much tax upon the air waited over the sun-kissed leaves of the broad beet fields of | 1a belle France. When they further consider that the sugar beet grown in the northern parts of Europe, where these marvelons Tesults | have been attained, is.an exotic, being indigenous in a much milder climate, namely, the regions bordering the north- ern shores of the Me<iterranean, we can fully appreciate the lesson taught by the nistory of the sugar-beet industry, which might be advantageously foilowed in most other food products. The sugar beet is a biennial plant stor- ing through the leaves from the air during | the first vear of its growth nutriment in the shape of sugar, that in the second year is to support the seed stock and mature the seed. It would therefore of necessity have to originate in and be indigenous to | a country whose climate 1s sufficiently mild to allow the roots to remain unfrozen | in the ground, where they have grown during the winter season, preparatory to putting forth the foliage and seed stock necessary to reproduce itself from the seed | thus matured. In those portionsof France, Germany and Austria where the sugar- beet industry has reached such perfection, the climate is too cold for this, therefore the sugar beet is an exotic in these regions and cannot be expected to flourish at its maximum perfection. The natural habit of the sugar beet is to send its taproot deep into the subsoilsin search of nutriment (as deep astwelve feet, as shown by absolute proof), which is evidence that it must have originated in a dry climate and deep alluvial soils. We find here in California all those na- tural conditions by which the sugar beet was enabled to come into existence in its original home; such as a mild, dry cli- mate, deep alluvial soils and long periods of sunshiny weather. We can, therefore, expect, as in fact it has already been proven, that in the coast valleys along the Pacific Ocean the sugar beet will again find its natural home; and after long traveling through experimental stages as a food and sugar producing plant in Eu- rope and across the broad Atlantic, has at | last found with us in California a combi- nation of those conditions which will un- questionably enable it to become one of the great economical and industrial prod- ucts of this country. These conclusions, drawn from the nat- ural history of the sugar beet, and the his- tory of its manufacture, have been fully borne out by the actual industrial efforts thus far made on the Pacific Coast. The original factory first put into opera- tion many years ago, after having gone through many necessary vicissitudes of experimentation, has how, for some years, been running successfully and at a profit to itsownersat Alvarado, Alameda County. The Watsonville factory, in Santa Cruz, County. established by Claus Spreckels, backed by large capital and managed by experienced beet-sugar manufacturers, has been a success from the start, and they have just finished a most successful and profitable campaign. The history of the sugar-beet industry at Chino, San Bernardino County, among the orange groves of Southern California, es- neared maturity I analyzed the different varieties all through the summer, fall and winter, keeping a careful record of the same; thus being able to determine the length of time they,could remain in the ground at their hignest condition of sugar puritv. These experiments not only proved thbat the sugar beet would flourish without rain, but that by early planting in the mild climate of Southern California the beets would ripen up and be fit to de- liver to the factory for making into sugar much earlier than had hitherto been done in any other country, namely, early in July (the Chino factory started this year on July 9). This is a great advantage to the factory, as was fully demonstrated this season by the factory commen- cing at the above date and run- ning ccati.uously to November 15, working fresh beets from the fields with- out the trouble and expense of siloing, for a period of over four months—an advan- tage that can only be appreciated by beet- sugar manufacturers saving the expense | of siloing, and the sutsequent loss by de- preciation in the sugar beet, and increas- ing the output of a factory of any. given capacity very much beyond what has been done in any other country or even in this State. The working results of the Chino fac- tory, now having run for five campaigns, have fully borne out the conclusions drawn from the three vears’ experiments, | and during that time there has been no failure in the crops, and the increase in acreage and tonnage has fuily come up to ur most sanguine expectations. The per- | centage of sugar in the beets has also been remarkable, showiug an average of 15 per cent for the five years. The output of the Chino Valley beet- sugar factory for the five years is as fol- lows 3,300,000 pounds sugar 7,747,385 pounds sugar 15,063,367 pounds sugar 9.471,672 pounds sugar 22,000,000 pounds sugar As a conclusion drawn from the above, I would say to those wishing to become in- terested in the beet sugar business, that the all-important thing is to prove by actual tests that the conditions of soil and climate are favorable over a sufficient area to furnish at least 500 tons per day of the roots for four months of each year. The ideal sugar beet should weigh from one and a half to two pounds, with a broad expanse of leaves, neither scorched by a too hot summer’s sun, nor shaded too much by fogs and clondy weather. It is | possible that the interior valleys of Sacra- | mento and San Joaquin may be too hot i durring the long summer days to permit | that full natural action of absorption of carbon from the atmosphere necessary to the growth of a high grade of sugar beet. The most difficult and complicated ques- tion involved in the agricultural better- ment of the people of the United States is that of regulating the supply and demand of its products, and this can be done only by introducing new and improved econom- ical products that will diversify and take the place of our present overdone agricul- tural productions, such as corn, wheat, fruit, etc., and there is no reason why the immense sums sent abroad for the pur- | chase of sugar from foreign countries can not only be saved by the American people through the culture of the sugar beet, but that a great industry can be "established, affording profitable employ- ment to labor as well as income from the land which cannotbe equaled by any other product whatever, mu;1 so far California seems to be the ideal successful sugar-beet producing region, capable of furnishing sugar for the whole of the United States. SELAD52D About Raisin Growing At Riverside And in Southern California. Written for “The Call”” By James Boyd. Riverside was the first colony in South- ern California that was founded and set- tled for the express purpose of fruit-rais- ing, and so well have the distinctive fea- tures of that early settlement been pre- served that to-day it would be difficult to find a single individual who makes his living from the soil who does not make it from fruit-growing. The earliest efforts in this direction were made in 1871, when a few acres were set out to various kinds of fruits. Among the principal kinds to which attention was early directed was that of the raisin grape. Previous to this time importations of the raisin grape had been made, and experiments conducted by | individuals in a desultory manner far enough to show that we had the true raisin grape and that it was well adapted to ‘success in our soil and climate. The white Muscat of Alexandria, which in several varieties is the true raisin grave, is originally from Europe, notably Spain, and it is a peculiarity of all Euro- pean varieties of grapes that none of them succeed east of the Rocky Mountains, ‘Why it is no one has been able to satisfac- torily explain, particularly as the grape- vine is indigenous to probably every State in the Union. This fact then—the adapta- bility of California to the growtn of Euro- pean varieties of the grapevine—has had much to do in shaping some of our horti- cultural pursuits. ‘When it was considered that the demard for and the consumption of raisins was universal ana that prices in all the prin- cipal marts of the world were high and, furthermore, that the United States was | one of the best markets and that the con- sumption was very large—so large, in fact, that no ordinary acreage planted would be | able to completely supply the market for | years to come, it need not surprise the reader that the business of planting raisin | vineyards was entered into enthusiastic- ally. Ithad stiil another advantage, and | that was early froitage. This, in a coun- try which at that time woula hardly sup- port a family by any ordinary system of tillage, was quite an attraction. So much | ‘was this the case that almost every settler in the early vears of Riverside had his | raisin vineyard; and again, the product, once properly cured, could be marketed at leisure. | As Riverside was the first to engage in | | principle that makes a good quality of ! tion fo details in some cases we now sur- vass the foreign product and the day is not far distant when we will make a product that will compel our toreign com- petitors to imitate our best efforts in order | to enter our markets at all. This is the case to-day in prunes and will in a few years be in raisins. The good point about our raisin-making is its absolute cleanli- ness from start to finish. Time has been when Chinese were al- most alone in our raisin vineyardsand vacking-bouses, but gradually as the sup- ply has increased white labor has been substituted. In the vineyards our men from the cities and boys from the public schools all turn in and help pick the grapes and care for them while on the trays drymg, and in the packing-houses for all the higher grades women and girls are employed exclusively where they can be obtained. The result is that we have built up a settlement of thrifty owners of homes embowered in roses and evergreen climbers in marked contrast to the usual filthy quarters of the Chinese. The raisin grape blossoms compara- tively late in the spring. When it does start it grows right along unhampered by the cold spells that in many countries are a standing menace to this industry. The first blossoms come from fruit buds formed on the wood from the previous season’s growth, but it is a peculiarity of. this and other European varieties of grape that they continue to blossom on the present year’s growth until cold weather comes in the fall and stops growth. This causes maturity of the grapes at different times and makes two pickings a necessity. The second picking, which is sometimes almost as large as the first, is subject to many vicissitudes in drying from rain and from dull, damp weather, with rapidly lengthening nights, and frequently it wili be along in December before the raisins are all secured. Length of time in curing | isno drawback to the raisins in drying provided they have not been subjected to such an amount of foggy or damp weather as to cause the stems to mildew and blacken. Rain does the drying grapes comparatively little harm, provided it clears off immediately after, but if they have not been stacked up before rain, and it comes rain with a few days damp weather thereafter, they will rot on the trays and have to be thrown away. This has happened very rarely in our kistory and in no year has there been anything like a total loss. In years like the present, with comparatively heavy rains early in | the season.and a long, dry season reach- | ing to the middle of December, no loss can | arise provided care is taken to turn the | raisins when the rains have passed over. Grape-picking commences in Riverside | from the middle to the end of September. In order to make good raisins, the grapes must be thoroughly ripe. The raisin grape | isa fleshy grape, and it is this fleshy rai The Muscatel Gordo Blanco in plain English means fat, white Muscatel. | Time seems to be an important element in | curing the raisin, as the change from the | fleshy principle of the grape to the rich pulpy syrup of the raisin goes on very | the business of raisin-making on a large scale, so in like manner its inhabitants, being bound together by the strongest ties | of personal interest and necessity, were the first to put the whole business, from pick- ing the grapes to marketing the finished | product, on a systematic and business-like | basis. It was early seen that some other method different from anything practiced | in Europe was one of the necessities of the situation. Labor was cheap in Europe | and the routine of centuries called for but | little brain exercise. Here in Riverside and California labor was high and brains | of more or less caliber were active. Men | and women who had been engaged in in- | tellectual pursuits for the whole of their | lives, whose spirits were active but whose | bodies in many cases were weak, were driven here by force of climatic severities | beyond the Rocky Mountains. Before we had had time to fully realize it we had ripe grapes needing attention, and what was to be done? The first settlers of the country had been drying their fruit, such | as it was, in a very primitive way on | frameworks of boards, and as such fruits | as they did dry were ripe in the hottest of | the weather, drying was a comparatively | easy matter. In this way were our lirst‘ raisins dried, but we soon found that an ordinary ten-acre vineyard would require | scres of lumber and of ground to dry | them on, and notonly that, to dry them in | this manuer involved such handling of the | fresh grapes as to destroy the freshness of the bloom, which is one of the most at- | tractive features of a first-class raisin, It was also found that the -raisin grape | with us ripened comparatively late in the | season, that the drying process was a very slow one, taking in ordinary seasons from | three to six weeks, that it admitted of no economical method of turning nor of pro- tection in case of early fall rains. Some had heard of drying on the bare ground, but that involved more or less dirt and al- most absolute and complete loss in case of rain, besides many raisins were broken off the stems which could only pe picked up | by a tedious and expensive process. Stout paper was tried with some advantagesover | the bare earth, but it was felt by one and all that unless we had some more expedi- tious method of turning and handling the grapes while in process of drying and of gathering them up when dry than the old Spanish method we would ultimately be forced to abandon the business. About this time the late R. B. Blowers of Wood- land, Yolo County, one of the pioneers of the State in making raisins, hit on the plan of using wooden trays for drying, which would admit of drying in the vineyard, and which would also dispense with all handling of the grapes by hana in pick- | ing, thus destroying the bloom and otler- wise detracting from the attractive appear- ance of the cured raisins. Thetray had also another important in- fluence in raisin-making, and that was that by simply putting an inverted empty tray on top of a full one and reversing the position of the two trays, two men might in a very short time turn a great many raisins, It was also a great safeguard in | case of threatened rain, for the trays could be gathered up and stacked on top of one another, covered by an emnpty one, until all danger from wet was passed, and when the raisin was cured it was an easy matter to slip them off the trays into the sweat- | box. The sweatbox was a distinct evolu- | tion from the tray, and performsan im- portant part ini the curing of the raisins. It being almost impossible from various causes to get absolute uniformity in curing the raisin, the sweatbox secures.equality of curing and also develops the fine aroma which is a characteristic of ail first-class raisins. Thus we have traced some of the details in the evolution of raisin-making, which, like a great many of our specialties in California, has had to be learned step by step, and the inexperience of the Anglo- Saxon race in these specialties, together with the jealousies of Europeans engaged in similar industries, have made our prog- ress slow, uncertain and laborious—like, for instance, oranges or lemons as typical of our green fruit industries, or prunes and apricots in the dried fruit business; but by dogged perseverance and atien- | off. | of the upper side of the grapes. | packing. slowly, and the sun seems to be one of the | important features in bringing aboat his! result. For the better grades of rai great care is necessary in picking the | grapes not to touch them with the hands and rub off the delicate bloom. Once dried, the bloom is set and cannot well be rubbed | In picking, the stem of the cluster is | held in one hand and separated by a knife in the other. It 1s then examined care- | fully for imperfect or rotten erapes, which | are then removed and cluster laid on the | tray evenly and left in the sun. | From twenty to twenty-five pounds of | grapes will fill an ordinary-sized tray measuring 2x3 feet. As we are not troubled by heavy dews no further care is necessary until about half dry, which may be known by a change of the color toa | dark brown and the wrinkled appearance | Two men can turn very rapidly in the manner here- tofore indicated, which is in favorable | weather in about ten days from time of | picking, and they will be fully dry in about | ten days more. When dry the trays are | stacked up in piles of about twenty trays, | where they are comparatively safe from | rain or other casualties, and can be put | into the sweatbox at leisure. The best | rasins are on the clusters and must be | handled carefully when dry to keep from | breaking off, as in the hot sun they ar very brittie and are best put in sweatbox in the cool of the morning or in damp weather. | The sweatbox is a large flat box 8| inches deep, 2 feet 2 inches wide by 3 feet | 2 inches long and holds about 100 pounds | of raisins. The grapes in ing shrink | about two-thirds and must not be too dry | or much of their value is lost. When put | in the sweatbox the moisture in the raisin | gets equalized and the stems get tough, | when they can be handled safery in The best grades are packed in boxes, | full boxes containing four five-pound lay- | ers, half boxes with two five-pound lay- | ers, quarters with one layer, eighths with | two and a half pounds and fancy boxes | with lesser amounts. They are pressed in | the process oi packing, which improves their appearance, and are packed in fancy papers with colored lithographs to add to their attractiveness. Inferior grades of raisins are stemmed, cleaned and sorted into various sizes and packed in boxes or sacks as the demands of the trade may | justify, but the best quality of loose raisins | are packed loose in fancy style the same as those on clusters, and bring about as good prices. The absolute cleanliness of all the pro- cesses of raisin-making ought to be one of the chief attractions to the consumer, for in ordinary vineyards there are no flies and no dirt of any kind, and the packing is done by women and girls, who often vie | with one another in attractiveness of ap- | pearance. The raisin business a few years ago was | one of our leading industries in Riverside, but of late years, owing to a variety of causes, mainly low prices, it has given place largely to orange-growing, princi- pally navels, and at the rate the change is taking place five years will see about the end of the raisin business in Riverside. | Low prices do noi concern us alone, but every raisin-growing place in Europe is suffering equally with us; but it is fast regulating itself, and: before long it will again be on a legitimately paying basis, verhaps not so profitable as in former years, but enough so to make it pay the grower for his investment and labors. 0&.,,,‘;, /3’—‘7/0 Power of the Old and New Navy. The old Constitution could, with her best guns, at 1000 yargs, pierce twenty-two inches of oak about the thickness of her own hull at water line. The 5-inch steel covering at the Atlanta’s water line had nearly the sams resisting power as the Constitution’s twenty-two inches of oak. The Atlanta’s 6-inch guns will, at 1000 yards, bore through a surface having twenty times the resisting power of her own or the Constitution’s hull at water | that you can almost count the lawyers of | this City upon the fingers of your hands | | but, at the risk of being too brief, I will A Tale Of the Land Titles of San Francisco And Vicinity. Written for “The Call” By L. R. Ellert. San Francisco is a paradise of edverse land titles. Probably there is no city in the world wherein there has been so much litigation over the title to and possession | of real estate as in this. The cause,as | everybody knows who has investigated | the subject, was due to the meeting in mortal combat of two diverse systems of acquiring real property. The Mexican pueblo or village-site system, by which residenters obtained title to their homes by grant from the Alcalde or Mayor, and the United States pre-emption system, by which possession and occupancy were made the test of a man’s right to get a patent, could hardly be reconciled. There was but one way to settle a dispute over them, and that way was adopted. The Mexican system was’sustained on the theory that being here first it was supported by the treaty with Mexico ana the laws in pursu- ance of that treaty. Out of this has grown innumerable ad- verse titles. Ordinarily in purchasing real estate a man is compelled 1o look out only for defective probate proceedings, misdescriptions and incumbrances, but in San Francisco he must be constantly on the watch lest somevbody turns up with a title to his Jand. It seems strange but it is nevertheless a fact that in this City there is scarcely a piece of property, cer- tainly not within the charter line of 1851, which at some time has not been the sub- ject of a suit to quiet title or an action in ejectment arising out of a conflicting claim. The business of the California Title In- surance and Trust Company, with which I am connected, is composed largely of land transactions. Its officers and attor- neysare constantly engaged in land litiga- tion of all kinds, and they are required to know all about the origin and progress of land titles in this City. To ome who has never intimately studied the subject it presents a maze thatis well-nigh incom- prehensible, and I will venture to say who are what may be said to be “thor- oughiy up”’ in San Francisco land titles. 1 think it would be interesting to briefly sketch the story of the origin of the tenure by which the present owners in San Fran- cisco hold their property. One cannot do so in tue space of a newspaper article with- out being necessarily brief and inaccurate, try and do so. When the pioneers landed in the mud at the foot of Montgomery street their notion of land tenures in this City was founded | upon their experience in the Eastern States. There the land was derived from the Gov- | ernment and all a man needed to do in or- der to get a title was to pre-empt, perfect his possession and pay the Government the price asked. The pioneers proceeded to settle San Francisco on this basis. They had a shaaowy notion that in some way Mexican grants legalized by the treaty of | Gaudalupe Hidalgo might interfere with | pre-emptions, but having a profound faith in the justice and liberality of tueir Gov- | ernment they did not at first think the | | Gate Park. [ the occupants might be established. In pursuance of this act the Legislature passed what is called the outside land act, by which the Board of Supervisors is em- powered, upon proper proof, to grant the City’s interest to actual occupants of those lands. Between 1870 and 1875 the Out- side Land Committee of the Board of Su- pervisors granted 95 per cent of all these lands to the possessors. Since that date, many deeds have been made and a few are still being made. Whle Mayor, 1, myself, signed a good many. Under the Van Ness ordinance a deed from the City really clears the recora to the possessor deriving his rights from the fact of possession. Under the outside land act a City deed was an absolute grant of the property, the title originally being in the City. 1t should be noted that before the Out- side Land Committee began its work the Supervisors set apart from the pueblo lands the 1000 acres now known as Golden They did this by compern- sating those in possession of a large part of it both with money and land. Throughout the era of adverse titles there was no fiercer litigation than that which took place on the Potrero. In the early days many pioneers settled along the creeks of the Potrero, because they there found a superior quality of clay for making bricks, which were then in great demand. They took up small claims and defended then by force. These claims were covered by the pre-emption rights of others, nota- bly those of Farrington and Ludlum, each of which comprised 160 acres. The pre- emptioners fenced in the little fellows and made war upon thend, but after intermina- ble litigation and many personal en- counters succeeded in establishing buta small part of their claims, and the original squatters triumphed. . Another conflict out of which grew a great many adverse titles was had over the farm lands granted by the Mexican Government within the pueblo district. The two largest ranchos were the San Miguel and Bernal, both of which were put partially within the pueblo. The. grantees of these ranchos presented their claims to the United States Land Commis- sion, and their grants were confirmed by the Commissioners. More litigation fol- lowed, the last of which has not yet sub- sided. The late snit brought by the Noe heirs raises the old question relating to the San Miguel rancho. The fact, however, that the statute of limitations ran only from the patent issued on these grants enabled their grantees to eject the squat- ters. The pueblo did not include all of tha present City and County of San Francisco. All of the land south of the line which ran due east and west across the peninsula from Mission Bay was Government prop- erty. The United States granted these lands to the State—that is to say, all of them which were not included in the Mex- ican grantsalready confirmed. Foralong time the State title and the titles obtained under unconfirmed Mexican grants in this region battled for the supremacy. It is only recently that this controversy has been settled. i The great source of litigation over land titles of late years has been caused by un- confirmed Mexican grants all over the pe- Two of the largest claims that were declared to be fraudulent were the | Pina claim, which covered a portion of | the Presidio Reservation, and the Potrero | claim. - Among the others were-what were known as the Sherrebeck, Ohm and Moore claims. The latter covered about half of | the City, and a claim known asthe De Fitch claim covered the remainder. These claims still ““bob up serenely” and frighten the property-owners. Nearly all of them, however, have been completely exploded, and except that they are made occasionally ninsula. Mexican claims were worth much consid- that the lands of the City were public | lands and the Government would some | subject was in an unsettled state the City authorities put forth a claim that the City | was a Spanish pueblo, consisting of four | square leagues, and that the preremptors | must get their title from the City. | In order to protect the grantees of the | Mexican Government, Congress estab- | lished a commission and instructed it to proceed to this City and ascertain the merits of the controversy. A long discus- | ion of the claim took place, which re- sulted in the pueblo title being sustained | by the commission. Subsequently it was | taken to the United States Circuit Court | and there affirmed by Justice Field. This | settled the pueblo title, and the practical | proposition was then presented of finding | the boundaries of the pueblo. These boundaries brought on the celebrated con- flict between the State and the pueblo titles, which settled down finally to the lands along Mission Creek. Two surveys | were made. The first one was by Stratton, who, for the southern boundary, followed the sinuosities of the creeks around Mis- sion Bay. Von Light subsequently, in accordance with instructions from the Land Office at Washington, ran a straight line across the peninsula for the southern boundary. His line was a little farther north and was surveyed so as to include within the pueblo the necessary four square leagues. Under the Mexican Government a large tract of land, boundec on the west by Larkin and Eleventh streets and on the north by Mission Bay lands, had been grantea by the Town Council of San Fraa- cisco to applicants for residence purposes. The Alcaldes who held office under the same Government had also had power to make similar grants, subject to confirma- tion by the Town Council, or; as it was called, the ‘““Ayuntamiento.” There were three American Alcaldes, namely, Leavenworth, Geary and Hyde, all of whom had made extensive conces- sions in pursuance of these zrants. After the incorporation of the City these grants were confirmed by the Legislature, so that the grantees were enabled to obtain their title also through the pueblo. In 1853 the City Council passed what was known ,as the Van Ness ordinance. This granted all of the City’s title within the then City limits under the pueblo to those in possession at that date. This order was confirmed by the Legislature in 1858, and thus the first solid title to lands in the City was affirmed. The difficulty now was to determine who the beoefi- ciaries were under the Van Ness ordinance, and in that resulted thousands upon thou- sands of adverse claims. Possession was a question of fact, and in many cases the facts were so conflicting as to render it al- most impossible to ascertain who had the better claim. It appeared, however, that all the land in ihe City was occupied at the time the Van Ness ordinance was passed except one piece. There is a tract, the location of which it is not necessary to give, where it has since been proved ‘in court that there was no possession. This is the only piece which is poaitively known not to have had an owner. The next dispute was over what is known as outside lands. In 1864 Con- gress granted all its interest in the pueblo to the City and County of San Francisco to furnish good newspaper storiés and give | eration. The general idea, in brief, was | the lawyers employment they are of no real consequence. To properly describe the development of | time give their possessorsa title. While the | land titles in San Francisco, tracing out in all their ramifications even the largest of the adverse claims, would require a very large volume. There is nothing so inter- esting, it seems to me, as such astudy, and I often wonder that no one has ever written a bock about it. The brief filed by John W. Dwinelle, who was attorney for the City before the United States Land Commission in the pueblo title case, gives the romantic history of the origin and de~ velopment of the Mexican pueblo. That, I think, is the only bit of literature on the subject. The rest is scattered through many official publieations, wherein the story is told in a very dry and uninterest- ing manner. Tne lesson of all this history—for it has a lesson—is simply this: Real estate is an excellent investment, no matter where it is located, provided the title is good. My experience as a business man and as man- ager of a company engaged in insuring titles, however, has taught me that money invested in property to which the legal title is not perfect is little better than hav- ing it in a bank which has suspended pay- ment. A bankbook in such an institution calls for your money, but you ¢annot get it. So real estate with a flaw in the title is good to keep, but you cannot sell it. There are two titles to real property— the record title, which is found in the archives of the city or county where the property is situated, and the possessory title, which resides only in a man who has held the land for five years and paid the taxes upon it. It may be said, however, that unless the possessory title is sup- ported by the record it is well nigh use- less, for the courts may sustain the claim- ant who can show that the property has been conveyved to him by a valid deed or by process of law. The importance of having a perfect record title when pur- chasing real estate can hardly be over- estimated. If I were to set down one- half the reasons that occur to me on this point I would fill a whole page of Tue Carn. Itis astonishing that any person should buy or nold property with a flaw in the title. Yet there are many who do that very thing. A European Gretna Green. 1t appears that the islanfl of Heligoland still continues under the German rule to majntain its character as a sort of Euro- pean Gretna Green. The.Heligoland clergy are Lutheran and are elected by tlie peo- ple, after the ancient Frisian custom. But most of their services as ministers of holy matrimony are not required by the mem- bers of their own flock, but by outsiders, who cross the seas to the island for the sake of getting married. Herr Berndt, the organist and music teacher of the island, has officiated for several yesrs as the “father’’ of numerous runaway brides and bas accepted his fee as ‘‘zeuge” nc less than 500 times. When he gives away a lady whom he has never seen before to a gentleman about whom he knows nothing at all Herr Berndt accepts a tixed **honor- -arium” of 100 marks—so, at least, the Ber- in trust for those in possession at that line. At the same range her 8-inch guns Ppierce fourteen inches of iron. time, leaving to the local Legislature to provide a method by wpich the rights of lin Das Echo tells us in a notice of the organist’s recent jubilee as a matrimonial proxy father,