San Diego County CA Archives History - Books .....The Mountain Division 1888
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Joy Fisher sdgenweb@yahoo.com February 20, 2006, 8:20 pm

Book Title: The City And County Of San Diego

CHAPTER XI.
THE MOUNTAIN DIVISION.

SAN JACINTO, ten thousand five hundred feet high, is the highest point in the
county. But this resembles the mountains of Los Angeles and San Bernardino
Counties more than the general mountain part of San Diego. It has, however, a
few valleys of rich land, but none of them are large enough for any purpose but
stock range and isolated farms. The southern continuation of the range for many
miles is of the same character until near the borders of Warner's Ranche.
Between the edge of this range where it bounds the desert and Mt. Palomar, some
thirty miles east, is a large tract bounded on the north by the Pauba Rancho and
Cohuilla Valley and the San Jancinto plains and on the south by Warner's Ranche
and the Coyote Mountains. The greater part of this is a very rough country, with
numerous bare hills, steep, low, and ugly, having a few small valleys among
them. This is also in many years a dry belt, the long- and lofty Palomar
cutting- off most of the rain that comes from the coast. With the exception of a
few spots like Aguanga and Oak Grove there is here little of value until we
reach Warner's Ranche.

   Warner's appears on the maps as San Jose del Valle and Valle de San Jose. It
is composed of two Mexican grants lying at the southeast of Palomar with an
elevation of twenty-five hundred to three thousand feet and about forty miles
from the coast. It contains in all some fifteen thousand acres of fine plow land
exclusive of that mentioned in the last chapter, mostly gray granite loam
somewhat coarser.than that found in the lower ranchos but of excellent quality
for all kinds of fruit. The most of the ranche is rolling upland, but there is
also considerable bottom land.

   The southwest edge rolls upward a thousand feet or more in a long-line of
blue and yellow bluffs clad in grass, chaparral, and oak into the highlands of
Mesa Grande, which we have seen before. On the south it rises over three
thousand feet into the pine-clad heights of Mount Volcan, the eastern boundary
of Santa Ysabel.

   Northwest of Warner's Ranche the long, high back of Palomar runs away to
Temecula. Palomar, commonly known as "Smith's Mountain," is about six thousand
feet high and nearly twenty miles long. Its top and sides are partly clad in
pine and oak, cedar and silver fir. Upon it are some six thousand acres of good
plow land, hue meadows and little valleys abounding upon its top and along its
sides. At the foot of its western slope, some four thousand feet below the top
and upon the banks of the upper San Luis River, and some twenty-four miles from
the sea, lie two Mexican grants, Pauma and Cuca.

   The Cuca is a small grant about twenty-five hundred feet above sea level
containing some six hundred or eight hundred acres only of arable land but of
very fine quality, while Pauma, about fifteen hundred feet high, contains some
four thousand acres of coarser grade than that of Cuca but still very desirable
for fruit-raising.

   South of the San Luis River at this point the land rises again into a broad
tract from fifteen hundred to three thousand feet high running through on the
southwest some twelve miles to the rugged hills that look down upon the fair
Escondido, on the south some twelve miles to the edge of the deep canon of the
upper San Dieguito River, on the east some twelve miles from Escondido to the
deep canon in which Pauma Valley lies nestled, and rising on the other side with
sudden sweep into the western highlands of Mesa Grande.

   On the southeastern part of this lies the Rancho Guejito with some seven
thousand acres of rolling mesa and valley all red granite soil, about two
thousand two hundred feet above the sea and some thirty-five miles from it.

   The rest of this inclosure that at a distance looks so rousjh and
un-inhabitable embraces a dozen or more valleys nearly all connected and having
an average elevation of fifteen hundred feet with considerable mesa and slope.
This is all known under the general name of Bear Valley and contains some seven
thousand acres of plow land.

   Crossing Santa Ysabel again we come to Mount Volcan, south of Warner's Ranche
and five thousand to six thousand feet high. This is a broad-topped mountain
with considerable arable land, grassy slopes and valleys and timber-clad ridges
and gulches.

   On the east this mountain suddenly falls some three thousand five hundred
feet into the Rancho San Felipe. This contains some four thousand acres of fine
arable land, most of it sloping away toward the desert.

   Going up the canon by way of Banner on the southeast we reach Julian and soon
come once more to the Cuyamaca Rancho which we cross and go southward. The
Cuyamaca contains some six thousand acres of arable land of which a part is
included in the valley known as Guatay. West of the main peak of the Cuyamaca,
among the forks of the San Diego River, which heads there, are some small
valleys and mesas with several hundred acres of good land; hut the mountains
be-some rougher as we go south and plow land grows scarcer. South of the San
Diego River we find no mountain valley larger than Viejas, which with its
branches contains some twenty-five hundred acres of tine tillable land at an
elevation of twenty-two hundred feet and thirty miles from the coast.

   From Viejas the land falls away toward El Cajon on the east in small mesas,
valleys and slopes known as Alpine District and containing a few thousand acres
of plow land bounded by the deep, rough canon of the Sweetwater on the south and
on the west by the east line of El Cajon.

   South of the Sweetwater the mountain valleys are smaller than on the north
and steeper on their sides. Slopes and mesas of arable land are also smaller:
Pine Valley, Lawson's Valley, Potrero, Cottonwood, and Milquatay are all small
but very pretty and fertile valleys separated by rough mountains. A few small
valleys and mesas are scattered among-them and in the timbered range of the
Laguna Mountains is considerable arable land. All this section is on a heavy
rain belt and the arable land is very fine in quality often with good stock
range between the tracts.

   Upon the Colorado desert, which forms some three-fifths of the whole county,
are thousands of acres of land of which the quality is good enough. Most of it
cannot be irrigated at all, while much of it will some day be reclaimed by the
waters of the Colorado River, by artesian wells and water from the eastern
slopes of the mountains. But the rainfall is generally so light and the hot
winds are so common that much cultivation is at present out of the question, and
the desert is practically uninhabitable. For this reason the desert is never
intended to be included when mention is made of San Diego County by any of its
residents.

   The estimate of arable land thus far made is a close one, rather under than
over. It is greater than it would have been made five years ago and less than it
will be five years from now. Yet I have taken pains to estimate it from the
present standpoint. The time is not far distant when settlers will roll rocks
out of the hill-sides and plant trees in their places, when hill-sides will be
terraced for vineyards, and cobblestones will be raked from the soil and fences
built of them, as has long been done in the East. But it would not be fair to
include such lands in any estimate now, though they would add largely to the
number of acres.

   It will be safe to add to the acreage thus far described five per cent for
small intervening tracts of which space will not permit special mention. We then
have as the total acreage of fairly arable land in the county in the three
divisions about five hundred and thirty thousand acres. Adding five per cent we
have in round numbers five hundred and fifty-five thousand acres, which exceeds
the amount of fairly arable land in San Bernardino County estimated upon the
same basis, and approaches very nearly that of Los Angeles County, excluding in
both cases of course their share of desert.



Additional Comments:
From:

THE
CITY AND COUNTY
OF
SAN DIEGO.
ILLUSTRATED,
AND CONTAINING
BI0GRAPHICAL SKETCHES
OF
PROMINENT MEN AND PIONEERS.

SAN DIEGO, CAL.
LEBERTHON & TAYLOR
1888


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