The Evening Mail du lieu suivant : Stockton, California • 6

THE EVENING MAIL, STOCKTON, CALIFORNIA, C7 Inn! 4 7 RrO 77 Rancher Declares Worth of Roberts island Leads Many of the Higher-Value Sedions by Five to One 900 STREET CARS PASS A GIVEN POINT DAILY KEEPING CITY ON TIME Francisco, and is one of the most mt ly improved ranches in the delta try of Stockton. It is 3200 acres. Regarded and rated as this pro; is by its owner and its managem a6 possession and operation of other erty elsewhere doing away entirely Hoi the matter of guesswork as to farming should be dove-tailed with seventeen warehouses are made to the reports he had had of the condi- Jso come in to play here that one of tions of this country, and he decided ithe most important branches of to strike outand look it over. He farming may be appliefor the fur-covered the country in a buck-board ther drawing down of such profits saw it all came soon to know as the market should legitimately that his muscle, plus experience, afford He has a mile and a quarter would here give him what he had I of river front on his laud and barges struggled for for years and he de-move all his crops. He makes his termiued to get in on the land at the warehouses stand as a sheld between earliest possible moment.

i him ard the low prices of a glutted Within six months he had cou-i market. He has taxed the limit of vinced others that he could make his warehouse capacity on more at farming three hundred acres icasions than one and he will build on rental, and with the debt of feed, more whenever they may be needed seed and other things hanging over to control the profit that rightly be-his him he made his start. longs to him. Twelve years later he had the I More than this, in spite of the three hundred acres paid for, had be-'fact that grain is the smallest pro-come owner of three hundred acres jducer of dollars and cents to the acre more; had erected thousands of dol-, in the present av, so has be farmed A veritable city on the farm is the result of the activities of one rancher on Roberts island. A residence of seventeen rooms, and each room standing at an average cost of one thousand dollars, forms the centerpiece of the improvements of this interesting group of buildings.

The figure seventeen applies farther, when the next of the principal buildings are counted those of barns or warehouses the seventeen buildings of the character representing an aggregate Hour area of 32.000 square feet. For still futther uniformity, and as indicating the extent to which the buddings on this property have gone towards the making of an independent cit, there are thirtj-two principal service buildings on the place, exclusive of innumerable other minor structures. each invested dollar is doing mal rel the present move towards the more intensive lines of farming will ultimately give us greater values than are to be found elsewhere The matter of production, and location, will form ample basis to justify such values. All of this section is destined to be divided into farms of twenty acres or less, and Mr. Strieker declares such acreage will provie abundantly for a family of average size.

A lesser acreage can do that which fact is proven out in the case of a family on the original Strieker place where wonders have been accomplished on ten acres. Should Mr. Striekler yield his interests here it will be because he has no further idea of farming. He knows from actual experience, that he could do no better elsewhere, and he is full of honest praise for the country, just as all other men are who have applied themselves properly to local conditions. Yet, for all the goodness he and others now see, it is the stranger, he asserts, on whom the most splendid impressions of the country fall, and because of this he looks for tremendous results out of next ear, when the exposition is held, and untold thousands come here from every part of the world.

THE ACID TEST OF THE WORTH OF STOCKTONS DELTA LANDS COMES SPLENDIDLY TO VIEW THROUGH THE ACTION OF A CERTAIN LARGE OWNER OF THESE LANDS, AVHO, DESPITE OTHER SALES THAT HAVE BEEN MADE AND WILLINGNESS TO SELL PROP-EKTY ELSEWHERE, STEADFASTLY HOLDS TO THE LOCAL ACREAGE. THERE IS NO THOFGHT OF SELLING THIS PROPERTY. NOR IS IT HELD FOR ANY SENTIMENTAL REASONS NOR TO GIVE PLAY TO ANY HOBBY. IT IS OPERATED, FREE FROM THE THOFGHT OF MARKETING, BECAUSE OF THE WORTH THAT COMES OF PRODUCTION AND, AS THE MANAGEMENT OF THE PROPERTIES PUTS IT, BECAUSE THESE RICH ACRES, IN THE MIDST OF A VERITABLE EMPIRE OF UNUSUAL PROMISE, HAVE THUS FAR PROVEN OUT THE MOST PROFITABLE INVESTMENT OF ALL OF THIS PARTYS HOLDINGS. an exceptional one for study on thr of those who wish to get at the ver tom of the facts and conditions' exist today.

It is the most profitable, dollar dollar, of all her broad Investment lands and city property throughout ifornia and the property is the not for sale; it is held, rather, be this money could not be better p'l Briefly, then these are facts which have an appeal whose wholesome press should be a material help in ing the highest class of population 1 this section of agricultural countr; Because of the desire of the owi i hold the property and to see, al that the accomplishment of its ac I ranges well up to every reasonable sibility of the best of the modern IT lars worth of buildings necessary to the efficient conduct of the business and continued on his way to better things Today he is farming a total of eight hundred acres renting two hundred from which he is this year producing approximately two hundred carloads of grain and over two undred carloads of grain hay making in all a train of cars something like three miles in length. He is not merely producing this quantity of products, however; his this land and stored its products, that his cereal and grain hay crops all-told, are paying him six per cent on a land valuation of $300 per acre. I have farmed in various sections of California, says Mr. Strieker, but of all such places Roberts island leads them all. I recall land sections where values are far higher than they are here, for five acres of which I would not exchange one of these.

Substantial values are bound to come to our lands here, however, and All of these improvements on one ranch on Roberts island; on the ranch of a man who cante into the country little more than seventeen years ago who started with less than nothing, and who today is so truly enabled to take life easy that he Is now planning on an an early trip to Europe, and such a trip will be made unless war prevents. its Bringing Out Stockton Lands as the Most Productive Section of Agricultural Country in All California Is Purpose That Should Dominate the Mind of Every i Handsome Seventeen-Room Residence and Group of the Thirty-Two I Principal Buildings on the Roberts Island Ranch of H. F. Strecker The stranger who comes in to Stock-ton and makes a study of conditions 'rein the traffic on Main street between California and San Joaquin must acknowledge that Stockton not only takes second place for no city In the state in proportion to size, hut more than this, that it has a magnificent lead over all others. The one big feature that calls for study of the situation from the particular point named is the operations of the Stockton Electric Railroad company, which, because of the fact that all of its lines traverse and make common use of the rails along this found, reflects the very essence of the activities of the city as to its down-town, suburban and intermediate districts On ordinary business days the tracks along these two blocks carry approximately nine hundred street cars, or fifty cars per hour throughout the company's eighteen-hour day, from 6 a.

pa. to 12 oclock midnight; and this surprisingly large number of cars, radiating out over hut six different lines, emphasizes a service whose dispatch cannot but have a wholesome effect upon the growth of the city and literally keep it on time. In the course of a months time the I cars actually in schedule operation under this system travel an average aggregate distance of eighty thousand miles, while five to ten thousand miles are frequently added to this distance according to the special occasions which demapd extended car service. In other words, the nine hundred-odd cars which pass over the common ground on Main street travel far enough in the course of a month to girdle the earth three times and leave enough mileage for substantial side-trips in every Important city that would be touched by any such belt of its ciiYumference. When viewed from the point of understanding that this great aggregate of travel is accomplished on sixteen miles of trackage, then further appreciation of the system as a directly helpful community-building factor comes to the surface.

As a matter of fact, there is not a line in the city that requires more than a nine-minute wait on the part of any prospective traveler for a car, and this applies to every hour of the companys day, while a six- and seven-minute service rules more generally throughout this time, as against a not uncommon ten-and fifteen-minute service in many other cities of the coast. A citys growth depends not a little on how often and how quickly its people its builders can move from point to point; and certainly the matter of its trasportatiou does not enter into any possible delays of the end that all Stockton is seeking. ie be ep nil ny lal st as oe mi us ig 1 nj' ro la nt nil ha on he to lut lee nri The ranch of Herman F. Strieker is undoubtedly one of the most interesting places in the Stockton country. It is of interest not alone because it is a big, business proposition, but because of that out of which it has been made and because that same element still has an open field here despite the higher development and the higher values that have taken place.

Industry intelligent industry is the force that has wrought what is now to he seen on the Strieker place; and it is because this same industry similarly applied now -can accomplish the same splendid ends; and because the Stockton country wants more such men that this rtory is given. The Strieker place, full interesting 1 as it may be, however, goes not exceed that which sourrounds the man a confidence borne of the land and its promise, coupled with the man's understandng of the farming and i his willingness to apply his know- ledge, that brought about the conditions that now are. I i The Strieker idea of farming was the same before coming to Roberts I island as it was afterward; yet he had succeeded in making no material neadway elsewhere. He had tried, and tried, in other parts of Califor-ra, but he could not make it go. Then he heard of Stockton and its island 1 country.

His understandong of what (Continued on page 8) and 'tihere ie little reason why it early be accomplished. Usually might almost say it is the rigid it is the larger land interests fight off irrigation because of the den of the cost falling directly them; but in this case it is not triu a matter of fact, the Smythes the larger land owners in that sect' are the most loyal and constant cates of such improvement. Within the territory hounded Calaveras on the north and Me slbugh on the south there are, it timated, between eighty and one dred thousand acres that coul. brought not only into greater nent safety from all unnatural tions, but made so much more ductive in intensive farming that dollar so invested would come many fold. Under the present iai conservation of water every ten see enough waste to irrigate at eighty thousand acres.

"The new settlers who come into section that is, the class this se most needs, says Mr. Smythe in connection, will be ready to give hearty approval of such improver, and until this is done all of this of farmers will ask why such vali waters are allowed to go to waste. In 'answer to a question as to''lb tent of settlement and development might reasonably be looked fohva-within the next ten years, Mr' Sn said that while it was possible hile he would l.ik to predict the twenty-acre ranch within that tim-least he could see that splendid within the next fifteen to twenty and that under those conditions ail others leading (up to that etas could see the most magnificent re to every farmer who made any pre-of working the soil as it should workqd. The Smythe property, covering i teen hundred acres, in two bodie land, would of itself make room nearly one hundred families under coming better order of things against one family of today; and this would mean all this industn more intensive production can In be realized than pictured. Eight and one half miles from today on a paved highway wi.i trie lights, power, telephone, and i other convenience possessed by townsman; twenty minutes away town pow as against s.n hour or ino former days the rancher, the theatre of an evening, if he that diversion, as early as many oi townspeople who have but a few to walk this, briefly, is a part 0 magnetic power that will create new population.

It is now operati this appealing condition and bringing tangible results even jv The possibilities that are ourc cause of what we have to do says Mr. Smytihe, should enrnr us in rightly and quickly taking every improvement leading to the ter conditions that are called tor hope to see early irrigation time conservation of the waters now hope to see much of our eners otherwise wasted, conserved th direct contact with the Stockton c1 her of commerce. Then I know vie make the rest of the world sec country as we do and take part development a we are doing and gether build up one of the countries in the world. Intelligent (Ureetion of the affairs of the Stockton country as to development and the attraction of tlie proper class of people to Its lands, will, in the opinion of Herbert J. Smythe, bring out of Stock-ton lands the most productive piece of agricultural country in California.

The class of people most desirable at tills as at all other times in a country in whose advancement there are such splendid possibilities, says he, is that class which is properly fit and able to secure the land, improve it and bring it into the productive stage through their own means. Acquired and improved after this fashion, vve have surround- ing us a country that will earlier come into the show-place stage I through improvements and pros- I perlty than any other in the state, with values keeping pace with ev- ery inch of advancement made. Mr. Smythe, as the representative of the Smythe inieree.ts on the Copperop-olis road, is vitally interested in this right form of development. It is not, with him, so much a matter of attracting farmers as of good farmers farmers of the thrifty and able order.

Nor is it selfishness that prompts this attitude; it is a matter of right and wrong with the wrong and its effects as applicable to the one who comes in to fail as to those who must bear with the unsuccessful in their fai'ures. We have a country with unbounded resources, he continued, but there is no getting away from the fact that, rich as it is, it is out of the question for the land itself to make improvements, provide a living for a family and yield the bulk of the purchase price, without a rare gift of industry. Capital is needed directly in proportion to the acreage taken over by any man; and taken over in this way, on the right basis, there is everything from a livelihood to wealth to be had from the land, according to the man. The Smythe people regard Stockton as one of the best markets in interior California, not only for what it uses itself, but because of the proximity and easy access to San Francisco, the great metropolis of the west and the gateway, through the Panama canal, to the world. The possibilities before this country are beyond any expressed conception that at present appear reasonable, according to Mr.

Smythe, and with something of this view in mind, Mr. Smythe, in a talk with The Mail, declared the need of the closest union of the interests of Stockton and of the Stockton country of so welding all interests into a unit that there may lie the least possible lost motion in getting the city and country up on the high plane it deserves. Whether it be through the chamber of commerce, by way of branch bodies throughout the country districts, or by other means, yet, he asserts, this link should be accomplished. "There is the best of feeling between all of these interests today," says he, but in the want of proper organization for active work there cannot be the concerted effort that can do the most for all of us. Irrigation is an issue that must of necessity be met in the Smythe country, Half of Roberts Island Broken up into Small Farms Within the Next Ten Years is Splendid Early Future One of Islands Big Grab Farmers Sees Coming Splendid Spirit cf the People of Roberts Island Is One of Big Factors for the Certain Attraction of the Right Gass of Intensive Farmers to Island Stockton Delta Lands Excell Others at $500 directions were given for the writers guidance through the country; and then came up matters concerning the Go out into the farming districts of Stockton and get a view of the spirit of the men who have been with the land for a quarter of a century ioountry itself.

It was in going over or more; sound them out and learn 'this latter, in the most frank and how young is their spirit still after wsy, that the man imparted all these years, and you will agree, the spirit The Mail man liked best oi A country rich in fruits, extensive- ou the people who can profit by all of its people happy in present ideas that is always uppermost in prosperous conditions and in the 'the mind of Mr. Lehman. He sees knowledge that as rhe country as a great chances for all of the Stockton whole advances nothing can prevent out of next year when the the proper forward movement of jexPsltion is held and the thousands their interests, this, in a word, is California. The attraction what Henry Lehman sees in the im- 0 these visitors to Stocktons island mediate future of the island countrv Country is, to his mind, limited only of Stockton. t0 the views the present people of Though he vas born and raised in I16 slands and Stockton hold and all to find.

It was the spirit he had set out in the hope of finding without the promoting that is so often necessary. If there is any land in the world where a man can make a go of readily epough, that there is something more than open country before them, and that that something is Opportunity and Life itself. In a recent trip out over that part of the island country known as Rob this section, none of the straws that 'Pxpress' As a patter of fact, if those bend to the winds of the times af interested in this sec- erts island the Mail representative farming, certainly it is in that very chanced quite unexpectedly across 'country of which Mr. Lund spoke, A. Lund before his ranch homeland in which he has spent the past had been reached and without, at the outset, knowing it was one of the Lunds of island farming repute.

A talk ensued in the roadway; San Joaquin County Lands Are Greatest in the Country, and Even Stockton People to Feel a Full Appreciation of Them, Have Long Ways to Go and Some Studying to tion will keep up the present booster spirit, and let it grow as it should grow in the very nature of things, he holds that these lands can be made the big feature of all California lands to practically every man who visits the exposition and Is open at all to study of land conditions. There is a lot of substance to this cape his notice. He has been a gram farmer for years; he is still following that line to the extent of a thousand acres, but that is only a means of sta-. ing witu it ar.d keeping busy until the present gradual tendency towards the higher development starts the ball more fully rolling in the right way. im surroundiiai thirty-seven years a country he has no thought of leaving, and could not leave if he wanted anything better.

Mr. Lund is convinced of this and he convinces you of his own conviction in the matter. The more you have looked around other sections of country, too, the more you are satisfied that this is the country wherein Roberts island, based on production and possibilities, looks as good to me as any $300 to $300 land I have ever seen anywhere," decares J. D. Me-Kellar, who is now farming eighty acres in beans and alfalfa and who has been in the Stockton country for thirty years.

He has farmed heavily in his time in the line of small grains, but he likes the intensive lines better, and he glories in the early day he sees coming when all of Roberts island will be made up of small farms. We have every condition here to create the moot attractive and profitable farming country in the west, says he. V.hat has already been ac-compished proves in a small way what can be done and 1 am convinced that with the coming of thousands of the good farmers who are, destined to settle on these lands we are going to perform in a way that will give great distinction to this section. Twenty acres of the McKellar place are devoted to alfalfa, while the remaining sixty are in beans, and the crops from these acres, while nothing as compared with those to come from the methods that will follow in later years, are now generous to the point of building the highest cntfcusiasm in the individual. This enthusiasm is one of the important things of the present In Mr McKellars opinion, and he personally itves nothing undone to keep the pot boiling," believing that as to its value In attracting new settlers it is equal in Importance to good lands and right surrounding conditions.

Next year alone, says he, ought to be a great producer of new settlers. While not all exposition visitors who are to settle in California will make the charge next year, enough of them will do so to give great impetus to development, and others will follow within a short time. Then within an-i other five years we can safely look! He your opportunities forward to remarkable changes and what could a man accomplish on remarkable profits to those who come a small piece of the rich land of Robin here in the meantime. ierts island? That, conceded Mr The McKellar ranch is one of thelLund, depends on the man- but if neat and well kept places of the is-1 he be the sort of man America picks land. It reflects all of the splendid out for success if he is willingly in faith of the owner.

The land isdustrious, he wont be on the land Half of all the acreage in Rob. I 'low of the Stockton country and the erts island, he declares, will be exposition, and tT the idea of getting broken up into small tracts and have fore the exposition visitors with it an owner or tennant on each mu- kpcmP8 firmly rooted as is the vi dual farm within the next of 'he people now here in the years. This accomplished, it will re- d'timate greatness of these lands, and quire but a few more years to see aptlon is accordingly taken, next the balance of the island developed rpsl' ts ill he nothing short and tennanted in the same substan- of tremendous. rial way 1 Mr. Lphman is one of the very If the lot of anv set of farmers "If11 behlnd thB Purpose and in the country is to be envied, I be-! and any, fundings that are lieve the farmers of Roberts island aJ will be in that class, for the rich shows that they are about all of the rich, produces with unusual abundance and is adapted to any of the more profitable lines of intensive farming.

long until he acknowledged he has under his hands the choicest land the country affords. If he is the hold on prosperity our agricultural country. While we all do appreciate the portance and influence of our lar interests to a greater or less exteri it my judgment that we can gain a deal by carrying the point farther I we Have thus far done that we further capitalize these interest- realize thereon. In other words, tr ton as a whole should know about its immediate agricultural ir ests; it ought to get more of its ur. standing and appreciation in this dr tion from actual visits and study on ground of the rancher, rather than (' confining itself too closely to quiries as to how crops are got' when the rancher comes to town, out on the land itself we should and go often; and if we did more of we would have more enthusiasm gether with a better and more prac understanding.

ft If those California cities which have been most in the public eye had what Stockton possesses exclusively, the country at large would not hear the last about them, and the greater substance that would be behind them would bring tremendous results, declares W. Brennan. "If Stockton, he continued, were to act as its great resources and advantages warrant it in doing, there is no reason under the sun why it should not develop into the most splendid city in California- and that is the very result I see coming out of Stocktons new spirit and its appreciation of local conditions. We want to continue with this new spirit we want to boost Stockton to its rightful place among California cities; but in undertaking this we do not want to overlook that one big item that gives us the greatest permanent same mind. Of the land that Mr.

Lehman is farming, 320 acres are owned by ness of its lands will not only produce abundantly aud profitably of crops, but because of this very fart will so increase in value that the next few years should see its farm- Th.at bespeaks an inter-ers making more actual money than est in development: hut aside from 'fiat his interest As Mr. McKellar likens it, one acre sort of man who can make a living of thi3 land is callable of a crop pro-1 oil twenty acres elsewhere, he will duction equal to that of two or more make a living and raise a bank ac-acres of lands in other sections where! count here, and that directly in proin many instances the land is now! portion to his ability as a farmer and bringing up to $300 per acre. Jn'to his industry. other words, not only are these lsndsj "To my mind this island country capable of two crops a year (or fiveis the greatest agricultural region in aud six in alfalfa), hut it stands to the world. It has been wheat produce two sources of profit through farmed for years; intensive lines production and through increase in valu9 1 Coatimued on page 8) Is the same as that of any other man, however newly-arrived to the district he may be, for any other set of farmers in the country The idea of boosting the island and its land and getting the facts of (Continued on page 8) acln tOontlaued eq.