A Truthful Woman in Southern California

by Kate Sanborn

  This new process has been purchased by a company who are going to try to give the country what it has never known before—pure olive oil, free from a bit of the stone. No pure oil is brought to our country. The public think the price too high; they prefer to buy cotton-seed oil at thirty-five cents a gallon, and this is adulterated with peanuts, sunflowers, and so on. This will do for the masses, but the best is none too good if it can be found.

  Few appreciate the medicinal value of olive oil. Nations making use regularly of this and the fruit are freed from dyspepsia. A free use in the United States would round out Brother Jonathan’s angular spareness of form, and make him less nervous and less like the typical Yankee of whom the witty Grace Greenwood said: “He looks as if the Lord had made him and then pinched him.” One does not see the orange groves here, but the lemon trees and walnuts and olives are an agreeable change—just for a change.

  “Who ever thinks of connecting such a commonplace article of diet as the lemon with the romantic history of ill-fated Anne Boleyn? Yet, indirectly, she was the cause of its first introduction into England, and so into popular notice. Henry VIII., who, if he rid himself of his wives like a brute, certainly won them like a prince, gave such splendid feasts and pageants in honor of the coronation of Anne and of their previous nuptials as had seldom been accorded to queens of the royal blood. These kingly entertainments were in turn followed by the great civic feast of London, for which the whole world was searched for delicacies to add to the splendor. At one such banquet, graced by the presence of the royal pair, a lemon was introduced as an elegant novelty. To an epicure such as Henry, the acquisition of a castle in France would have proved less acceptable, and such was the importance attached to the discovery—so says an old biographer—that a special record was made of the fact that the cost of this precious lemon was six silver pennies.”

  We hear nothing of irrigation, but almost everything will thrive without it. The soil grows well all varieties of fruits found in the Eastern and New England States, besides all the semi-tropical fruits, as guavas, loquats, persimmons, dates, etc. As the Rev. Mr. Jackson says: “Could it be shown that the primitive Eden bore as many fruits pleasant to the taste, it would add a new pang to the thought of original sin.”

  The number of native trees seems small, but trees have been naturalized here from every part of the world. The pepper tree is from Peru, also the quinine tree: from Chili, the monkey tree and the Norfolk Island pine.

  Mr. Cooper imported the eucalyptus from Australia. It grows rapidly, and is planted for windbreaks. It is used for firewood, and when cut down nearly to the ground will start up with the same old courage and ambition. Its roots are so eager for water that they make long detours, sometimes even climbing up and down a stone wall, if it is in their route, or into a well. From the same country comes the acacia, the rubber tree, and a large number of shrubs. New Zealand contributes her share, and to China and Japan they are indebted for the camphor tree, the gingko, the loquat, and the chestnuts. To South Africa they are indebted for the silver tree, and from the northern part of that country the date-palm and the tamarind.

  One sees side by side here, and in Pasadena, trees from almost opposite climes: the New England elm and a cork tree, a cedar of Lebanon and a maple or an English oak. Then the glorious palm—twenty-two varieties in Montecito Valley alone.

  Sydney Smith said of the fertility of Australia, “Tickle her with a hoe and she laughs with a harvest.” But in California even the hoe is not needed, for “volunteer crops” come up all by themselves, and look better than ours so carefully cultivated. They say that if a Chinaman eats a watermelon under a tree the result is a fine crop of melons next year. And I read of a volunteer tomato plant ploughed down twice that measured twelve feet square, and bore thousands of small red tomatoes.

  Alfalfa is an ever-growing crop—can be garnered five times each year.

  And as for flowers, I really cannot attempt to enumerate or describe in detail. There are hundreds of varieties of roses. They were found growing wild by myriads, and have been most carefully cultivated and improved. One rose tree in the grounds of the Arlington Hotel has spread over sixty feet of the veranda, and three lady guests have climbed into its branches at once. As one man said: “The roses here would climb to the moon if a trellis could be provided.”

  A friend sent me twenty-five large bunches of the choicest roses from her garden one morning in April, each bunch a different variety. Their roses are shipped in large quantities to San Francisco, and Chicago has her churches decorated at Easter from the rose gardens of Santa Barbara.

  Honey naturally is thought of. Apiculture here is a great business. The bee has to be busy all day long and all through the year—no rest. One ingenious fellow proposed crossing the working bee with the firefly, so it could work all night long by its own lantern. But this is better. I hear wondrous stories of bees getting into cracks of church towers or upper stories, and bulging out the buildings with their accumulated stores—positively cartloads of sweetness. Think of honey made from orange flowers selling at five cents a pound!

  A clergyman writing of Santa Barbara County says that twenty-five years ago all their vegetables were imported. Now beans yield a ton to the acre, potatoes two hundred and fifty bushels per acre, and he has seen potatoes that weighed six, seven, and eight and a half pounds—as much as an ordinary baby; beets, seventy-five tons to the acre; carrots, thirty. Mr. Webster once declared in Congress that this State could never raise a bushel of grain. Corn yields fifty bushels to the acre; barley, sixty; wheat, thirty. Others give much higher records: corn, one hundred and thirty bushels; barley, eighty; potatoes, four hundred; forty tons of squashes, four tons of hay, sixty tons of beets.

  I have spoken of stock-raising. Dairying is a profitable industry. Poultry farming a little uncertain. If interested in mining there is much to explore. Just in this county are found gold, silver, copper, asphaltum, bituminous rock, gypsum, quicksilver, natural gas, and petroleum.

  And what sort of a climate does one find? Santa Barbara is an all-year-round resort. It has all that one could ask.

  “The mountains look on Marathon, And Marathon looks on the sea.”

  It is a perpetual summer—sometimes a cold and rainy June, sometimes a little too warm, sometimes a three days’ sand-storm, disagreeable and trying; but it is always June, as we in New England know June. At least it is Juney from 9 A.M. until 4 P.M. Just before sunset the temperature falls. Then when the sun goes rapidly in or down it is like being out at sea. And to a sensitive patient, with nerves all on outside, chilled by the least coolness, it is unpleasantly piercing.

  When any one describes Santa Barbara to you as a town

  “Where winds are hushed nor dare to breathe aloud, Where skies seem never to have borne a cloud,”

  remember that this applies truthfully to “a Santa Barbara day,” but not to all days. Surf bathers go in every month of the year. But this does not alter the fact that a person would be disappointed and consider himself deceived if he accepted the general idea of absolute heaven on earth. The inhabitants do not wish such exaggerations and misrepresentations to go forth. California can bear to have the whole truth told, and still be far ahead. Who wants eternal sunshine, eternal monotony?

  The temperature during the day varies little. I see that one resident compares it with May in other parts of the country. I think he has never tried to find a picnic day in early May in New England. He says: “Our coldest month is warmer than April at Philadelphia, and our warmest one much cooler than June at same place.” They did have one simoon in 1859, when the mercury rose to 133°, and stayed there for eight hours. Animals and birds died, trees were blasted and burned, and gardens ruined. But that was most “unusual.”

  Flannels are worn the year round. Average of rain, seventeen inches. There are sixty-one mineral and medicinal springs in California that are already famous. Here we can take hot sulphur baths, and drink the nauseous water that is said to cure alm
ost all diseases.

  Farming is comparatively easy. But grapevines are smitten by a mysterious disease called “cellular degeneration,” and phylloxera; a black scale that injures orange and olive, and a white scale that is worse. Apples are not free from worms; the gopher is sure to go for every root it can find. There was a serpent even in the original Eden. The historian remarks: “The cloddish, shiftless farmer is perhaps safer in Massachusetts.” I think of experiences at “Gooseville,” and decide not to buy, nor even rent a ranch, nor accept one if offered. “Fly to ills I know not of?” No, thank you!

  I’m tired now of agriculture and climate, and will turn to less practical themes. You sympathize. We will stop and begin a new chapter, with a hope of being more interesting.

  CHAPTER XIII.

  IN GALA DRESS.

  “The sun is warm, the sky is clear, The waves are dancing, fast and bright; Both isles and snowy mountains wear The purple noon’s transparent light.”

  To see Santa Barbara at its best you must go there for the Floral Carnival. Then at high noon, on a mid-April day, all State Street is brilliantly decorated with leaves of the date-palm, pampa plumes, moss combined with tropical foliage, calla-lilies, wildflowers, bamboo, immortelles, branches of pepper trees, evergreens, lemon boughs laden with yellow fruit, and variegated shrubs. Draperies of white and gold, with green or red in contrast, or blue and white, in harmony with red flowers, or floral arches draped with fish-nets bestrewn with pink roses; or yellow alone in draperies combined with the poppy, or gray moss and roses. No one fails to respond to the color summons for the day of days. The meat-markets are tastefully concealed with a leafy screen and callas. The undertaker makes his place as cheerful as possible with evergreens, roses, and red geraniums. The drugstore is gaily trimmed, and above the door see the great golden mortar made of marigolds. The Mexican and Californian colors are often flung out, and flags are flying from many windows. The long broad street is a blaze of glory; the immense audience, seated on tiers of benches, wait patiently, then impatiently, for the expected procession; and as many more people are standing in line, equally eager. Many have baskets or armfuls of flowers, with which to pelt the passing acquaintance. There are moments of such intense interest that everything is indelibly and eternally photographed. I see, as I write, the absolutely cloudless sky of perfect blue, the sea a darker shade, equally perfect, the white paved street, the kaleidoscope of color, the fluttering pennants, the faces of the crowd all turned in one direction, and hark! the band is really coming, the beginning of the pageant is just seen, and now sea, sky, flags, crowds are no more regarded, for the long-talked-of parade is here. See advancing the Grand Commander and his showy aids, gay Spanish cavaliers, the horses stepping proudly, realizing the importance of the occasion, the saddles and bridles wound with ribbons or covered with flowers. And next the Goddess of Flowers, in canopy-covered shell, a pretty little Mayflower of a maiden, with a band of maids of honor, each in a dainty shell. The shouts and applause add to the excitement, and flowers are hurled in merry war at the cavaliers, and the goddess and her attendants. Next comes the George Washington coach, modelled after the historic vehicle, occupied by stately dames and courtly gentlemen in colonial array; even the footmen are perfection in the regulation livery of that period. Solemn and imposing this may be, but they get a merciless shower of roses, and one of the prizes. And do look at the haymakers! Oh, that is charming! Country girls and boys on a load of new-mown hay, with broad-brimmed hats, and dresses trimmed with wildflowers. And now the advance-guard is coming down again; they have just turned at the head of the line, and it is already a little confusing. But the judges! How can they keep cool, or even think, with such a clamor of voices, and guests chattering thoughtlessly to them. Here comes a big basket on wheels, handle and all covered with moss and roses. Four girls in pink silk trimmed with moss stand within, bearing shields of pink roses to protect their laughing faces from excess of attention. What a lovely picture! Another basket just behind covered entirely with marguerites; the wheels also are each a marguerite, the white horses with harness covered with yellow ribbon—so dainty, so cool. Is it better than the other? And here is a Roman chariot, a Spanish market-wagon, a phaeton covered with yellow mustard, a hermit in monastic garb; then Robin Hood and his merry men, and Maid Marian in yellow-green habit, Will Scarlet and Friar Tuck in green doublets, yellow facings, bright green felt hats, bows and quivers flower-trimmed, even the tiny arrows winged with blossoms. Now there are equipages three deep to survey instead of one, as they pass and repass in bewildering splendor. And do look! Here come the comicalities! “The Old Woman who lived in a Shoe”—a big floral slipper, with a dozen children in pink and gray-green, and the old woman on great poke-bonnet; a Japanese jinrikisha; an egg of white flowers, and a little boy hid away so as to peep and put out a downy head as a yellow chicken; a bicycle brigade; equestriennes; an interesting procession of native Californians, with the accoutrements of the Castilian, on horseback. One carriage is banked with marigolds, and the black horses are harnessed in yellow of the exact shade. It is fitly occupied by black-eyed Spanish beauties, with raven hair done up high with gold combs, and black lace costumes with marigolds for trimming, and takes a well-deserved prize.

  Roses, roses, roses, roses! How they fly and fall as the fleeting display is passing! Thirty thousand on one carriage. Roses cover the street. And yet the gardens don’t seem stripped. Where millions are blooming thousands are not missed. And not roses alone, but every flower of field and garden and conservatory is honored and displayed. Now the contestants are driving up to the grand stand to secure silken banners. Every one looks a little bit weary in procession and audience. Is it over? I murmur regretfully:

  “All that’s bright must fade, The brightest still the fleetest; All that’s sweet was made But to be lost when sweetest.”

  Yes, it is over! Waving banners, rainbow colors, showers of blossoms, rosy faces, mimic battle, fairy scenes, the ideal realized!

  This is better than the New Orleans Mardi Gras, so often marred by rain and mud, with mythological ambiguities that few can understand, and difficult to interpret in passing tableaux; better than similar display at Nice and Mentone. This I do call “unique” and the only. Let Santa Barbara have this yearly festa for her own. She has fairly won the preëminence.

  We at the comparatively frozen and prosaic north can indulge in gay coaching parades at Franconia, Newport, or Lenox, where costumes of gorgeous hues assist the natural beauty of the flowers. But it is only a coaching parade, at the wind-up of a gay season. We cannot catch the evanescent glamour, the optical enchantment, the fantastic fun, the exquisite art of making long preparation and hard work, careful schemes for effect, appear like airy nonsense for the amusement of an idle hour. We show the machinery. A true carnival can only be a success in a perpetual “summer-land,” “within a lovely landscape on a bright and laughing seacoast.” Taine said, “Give me the race, the surroundings, and the epoch, and I show you the man.” Give me fair women, roses, sunshine, leisure, and high-bred, prancing steeds, and I show you this Santa Barbara Carnival.

  But this is only a portion of the entertainment. There is a display of flowers at the Pavilion, where everything can be found that blooms in California, all most artistically arrayed; and more fascinating in the evening, when hundreds of tiny electric lights twinkle everywhere from out the grayish-green moss, and the hall is filled with admiring guests. There is always a play given one evening by amateur talent, a tournament, and a grand closing ball.

  The tournament is exciting, where skilful riders try tilting at rings, trying to take as many rings as possible on lance while galloping by the wires on which these rings are lightly suspended–a difficult accomplishment. Their costumes are elaborate and gay, but never outrè or bizarre, and no two alike. Each has his own color, and, like the knights of old, has a fayre ladye among the spectators who is especially interested and anxious for his success.

  Next comes the Spanish g
ame of “colgar,” picking up ten-dollar gold pieces from the saddle, the horse at full speed. And the gymkhana race ends the games. Those who enter, saddle at the word “go,” open an umbrella, and, taking out a cigar, light and smoke it—then see who first rides to the goal.

  Last came the real vaqueros, and they ride untamed, unbroken horses, after a long and rather painful struggle to mount. They lasso mustangs and do wonderful things. But it was too much. I was glad to go and rest.

  The Flower Dance at the ball, where human flowers formed intricate figures and dances for our edification and delight, was so attractive that my words are of no avail. Picture twenty-eight young ladies, each dressed to represent a flower—hollyhock, pansy, moss, rose, morning-glory, eucalyptus blossom, pink clover, yellow marguerite, Cherokee rose, pink carnation, forget-me-not, buttercup, pink-and-white fuchsia, lily of the valley, wine-colored peony, white iris, daffodil, and so on. They advance with slowly swaying motion, with wreaths uplifted until they reach the stage, where sit the guests of honor. There they bow low, then lay the garlands at their feet, and retire, forming ingeniously pretty groups and figures, while bees and butterflies flit in and out. See the bees pursuing the little pink rosebuds until at last they join hands and dance gaily away, only to be enthusiastically recalled.