TOUR OF CALIFORNIA.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXX, Issue 5430, 29 May 1929, Page 4

TOUR OF CALIFORNIA.

AN OHINEMURI TRAVELLER. NEW ZEALAND PREFERRED. Mr R. Joughlin, a former resident of Waihi, who is on a world’s tour, writing to a friend at Waihi, says :— “Since I arrived in these parts I have been over some 3500 miles of California and visited a good many places and industries, with the result that I have come to the conclusion that the average man is better off in New Zealand than in California. In the motor factories the men look pale and remind one of those of our miners who have the misfortune to contract miners’ phthisis. Their lungs get full of steel dust, and every year they have to take two or three months off, getting out into the fresh air to recuperate. With the loss of time their wages, though higher when working, would not exceed the average received for the twelve months by New Zealand workers. A Sight-seeing Trip. “I have been down to see some of the much advertised scenery and went to the big basin at Santa Cruz, where some of the trees are nearly 300 ft high and up to 30ft through at the base, but they are not to be compared to our kauri giants, which also may be said of the other shrubs and trees when comparing them with New Zealand’s beautiful ferns, nikaus, and native trees. There is too much of the sameness in the trees here and not the variety we have. I also visited the Yosemite Valley, a cleft in the west slope of the Sierra Nevada, which is considered one of the wonder spots of America. It reminded me of Karangahake and the Waitawheta gorge, but here again there was not the same variety of plant life and no beautiful ferns such as we have. Another trip I made was to the Bakersfield oil wells, where there are thousands of bores—the biggest oilfield in California—with millions of gallons of oil in large tanks, with men guarding them. Grape and orchard cultivation is carried on on an enormous scale in California, and I went through 120 miles of stone-fruit orchards without a break. Drawbacks of Fanning. “The farmer is certainly not as well off as the man on the land in the Dominion, largely because the country has not got the same plentiful rains, most of it being dependent on irrigation. Some of the farming districts I have been through only get six to eight inches of rain yearly, and yet the farmers try to carry on dairying. They appeal’ anything but prosperous, and the dry-looking paddocks would not appeal to New Zealanders. The sheep are also dirty, black looking creatures, and it takes about three acres to run a sheep—very different from the Dominion with its nice white sheep and green pastures which carry a couple of sheep to the acre. Another drawback is the lack of shelter, in providing which the Australian blue gum is largely grown. A Pleasant Surprise. “I Eave not got used to the daily newspapers here. Their editors and reporters seem to be wild-eyed young people with a vision that reaches no further than their own backyard. It’s a treat to get the Auckland Weekly News with its full accounts of worldwide doings, often even telling us more of what is going on in these parts than the papers here. Yesterday (April 20) we were taken by surprise in meeting two of the sisters from the Mater Miseracordia Hospital at Auckland. We had the pleasure of showing them the sights of Oakland and took them to the air port, where they got into one of the big passenger ’planes. A visit to the Alameda Hospital followed, and then we went through the tube under the river. They seemed to thoroughly enjoy the run.”