Oceanside

OCEANSIDE

Progress of the Country and the Outlook for the Season

OCEANSIDE April 6 – (Correspondent of the Times)

Business is picking up; everything is brighter, and people are feeling a renewed confidence in Southern California. Real estate sales are brisker, and some very good sales have been made. Politicians are brightening up their armor, and the political pot is beginning to boil. Oceanside will hold an election the 14^th to elect city officers.

The various agents of the San Luis Rey Water Company are making both land and cash contracts for water all over the country, and we think the dawn of a new day is at hand.

The sound of the saw and hammer is again heard in the land, and there are no idle machines in Oceanside.

1. L. Morrill, general manager of the big water company, is in Chicago, but will be home this week, when active work will begin on the new water supply for our city.

The season promises the best for summer visitors we have ever known. Already enquiries are being made for cottages, rooms, etc., from Riverside, San Bernardino, Colton, etc.

The wharf, so long an eyesore to the town, is about to be completed. Mr. Sheldon, the contractor, has been here the past week, and closed the arrangements, and his men will be down from ‘Frisco, soon. As soon as it is complete both lines of steamers will land and receive and discharge both passengers and freight.

I have just returned from a trip to Escondido and San Pascual Valley. Crops are looking fine, but begin to want a little more water. With a good, soaking rain now San Diego country will produce an immense crop. The San Pascual Valley is one of the prettiest little valleys in California, and noted for its fruit, melons and alfalfa, and it promises to fulfil the inhabitants’ greatest expectations this season.

I read a very interesting letter from the tenderfoot in San Diego some time since, written to an Iowa paper. I should judge the aforesaid t.t. had not been picking up the twenty dollar gold pieces he had expected and was complaining bitterly, and his principal cry was the lands are too high. A man to be able to buy land in California would have to have an unlimited bank account: in fact, so large that he would be a fool to invest in a ranch, but could live off the interest.

I don’t believe he wanted a ranch, or would know what to do with one if he had it. I can show the gentleman land that can be bought from ten to fifty dollars an acre that will produce as well as any land in the world. In fact, I will agree to show him 400 acres in one body within ten miles of here, better land than there lies between the four boundaries of Iowa; rolling land, but it requires muscle to clear the bush off it; land that will grow the vine, the fig, the orange, the olive; in fact, anything. Every acre can be cultivated, and can be bought for $6 per acre; and I will guarantee him that one acre will pay him better profit than any 10 acres he can name in Iowa.

Both the Oceanside and San Wing Fish companies have begun business again. They do not get a great many at a haul now, as the fish do not seem to be running near shore yet, but they are taking a few, and making some light shipments; but in a short time they will be prepared to fill orders from Los Angeles, San Bernardino, etc.

Yours, truly, O. M. R.s