Santa Cruz County CA Archives History - Books .....Chapter VII Resources Of Santa Cruz County 1893 ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/ca/cafiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Joy Fisher cagwarchives@gmail.com January 12, 2007, 12:14 am Book Title: Memorial And Biographical History Of The Coast Counties Of Central California. CHAPTER VII. RESOURCES OF SANTA CRUZ COUNTY. SANTA CRUZ COUNTY'S resources are extensive and varied, and probably intelligent and persistent labor finds no surer or more profitable rewards, anywhere in the State than in Santa Cruz county. A local authority estimates that during only the last twenty years 400,000,000 feet of lumber have been cut in the county, besides railroad ties in unlimited quantity, and that 37,500 acres of timber lands remain, equal to more than a thousand million feet of lumber, or a supply suffiient [sic] to last fifty years yet. The large companies engaged in the lumber business include the Loma Prieto Lumber Company, Grover & Company, Cunningham & Company, and the Santa Cruz Company, each of which has one or more sawmills. Both the stock-raising and the dairy business are extensive and prosperous. Several million dollars are invested in the county, in manufactures of various kinds, including powder, paper, lumber-mills, beet sugar, soap, glue cheese and butter factories; tanneries, and lime-kilns, etc. These industries enjoy here many advantages, such as rail and water transportation facilities, abundance of cheap fuel, water-motor power, coal, lumber for building, etc., etc. Besides, the climate is favorable for the preservation of all perishable products. The Western Sugar Beet Company, near Watsonville, has something like half a million dollars invested in its plant and business. Its average daily capacity is about three hundred and fifty tons of beets, or forty-five tons of sugar. It runs from three to five months a year; employs 150 men, when in operation, paying $12,000 per month in wages, and $40,000 per month to the farmers for beets. The company pays four dollars a ton for beets yielding fourteen per cent of sugar, and fifty cents a ton for each additional per centum or degree of polarization above fourteen. Thirteen hundred tons of lime rock are used annually for making lime, used in the process of making sugar. Pajaro valley and portions of Salinas valley, are admirably adapted to the growth of beets. The company has planted 1,200 acres to beets, near Castroville; and a nar row-gauge railroad has been constructed by the company, thirteen miles in length, from their factory to lands in the Salinas valley, which the company has rented for the purpose of raising beets on a large scale. The South Coast Paper Mills, on the Soquel creek, were established in 1880. The motive power of these mills is water and steam; their present daily capacity is three and one half tons of straw wrapping paper. They employ about twenty-five hands; their expenditure annually for labor is $15,000, and for straw and lime $9,000 and 3,000 respectively. The Corralitos Paper Mills are located seven miles northerly from Watsonville. They use steam power and have about thirty-five employes, and produce about five tons of various kinds of straw paper daily. The California Powder Works have an ordinary capacity of six or seven hundred kegs of powder per day; but during the past year they have produced as high as 900 kegs, of twenty-five pounds each, per day. The supply of lime rock in Santa Cruz county is practically inexhaustible; Santa Cruz lime is well known all over the State. Its quality is excellent, and exportations are large. Several hundred men are employed in this industry, which brings much money into the county. There are several tanneries, which turn out in the aggregate large quantities of leather, of excellent quality, the products of one establishment alone being about $160,000 worth annually. Bituminous rock, of which mention has already been made under the head of "Mineral Resources" of Santa Cruz county, is also a source of large revenue. It is asserted that since April 1, 1892, the product of this valuable commodity has been about 100 tons daily. The principal sources of supply of merchantable bituminous lime rock, in California, are in the counties of San Luis Obispo, and Santa Cruz; and in both counties the supply is said to be practically inexhaustible. In the Pajaro valley hops are raised to some extent, and with success, the average yield being about one ton per acre, worth fifteen cents a pound. There are several hundred acres of olive trees growing in the county, but not yet in bearing. All kinds of fruits and berries of the temperate zone grow well in this county; and on the hills and highlands, apples, plums and cherries and apricots do remarkably well. VINEYARDS. The vineyards on the hill lands and on the mountain sides, in Santa Cruz, as in nearly every other county in the State do well, and with the right kind of grapes and proper treatment, produce wines of superior quality. There are about 3,000 acres of vineyard in the county, mostly of choice foreign varieties. "With the rich soil and genial climate of these mountain sides, and the true wine grapes of France or of the south of Europe; and with skill and experience in treatment, there are almost limitless possibilities in the excellence of wines that can be produced in the future in this county. These possibilities have hardly, as yet, begun to be appreciated. Additional Comments: Extracted from: Memorial and Biographical History of the Coast Counties of Central California. Illustrated. Containing a History of this Important Section of the Pacific Coast from the Earliest Period of its Discovery to the Present Time, together with Glimpses of its Auspicious Future; Illustrations and Full-Page Portraits of some of its Eminent Men, and Biographical Mention of many of its Pioneers, and Prominent Citizens of To-day. HENRY D. BARROWS, Editor of the Historical Department. LUTHER A. INGERSOLL, Editor of the Biographical Department. "A people that take no pride in the noble achievements of remote ancestors will never achieve anything worthy to be remembered with pride by remote descendants."-Macaulay. File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/ca/santacruz/history/1893/memorial/chapterv199gms.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/cafiles/ File size: 6.6 Kb