CALIFORNIA TOUR

Opotiki News, Volume I, Issue 111, 18 November 1938, Page 4

CALIFORNIA TOUR

HOME OF TfHE GEANJS , WE'iLCDME) TO VISITORS CHEAP FRUIT: .DEAR GAME GISBORNrmS’ ‘ IMPRESSIONS “ lOvcrytnijig is iu Galjiloriiin, especially tlieir% ideas of hosintsility. People there 1 cannot do eho'ugh lor visitors ivlvo come recommended by their friends abroad, and they open their homes to the in with a heartwanning welcome. .. Wo. .-found our visit all too short, and rogrottod that we had not moire , time at. o iirl disposal,remarked Mr, H. H- DeCosta, discussing with a Herald representative the tour of California from which lie and ills. DeCosta returned during the week-end. ;>. ; «

Tin ■ee and a-lialf months ago, they left Gisborne to visit relatives :pf Mrs. DeCosta resident on the Pacific Coast of tho . United States, and tpi inpet again friends made by Mir. DeCosta when he was last across the Pacific, in 11)24. 'l'heir travels coveredf thousands of miles ashore, in 'California, and they made many, anees in civic and social life'th eye. From San Francisco Mr. and Mrs-.

DeCtosta proceeded'to Hayward,; where they,were the guests of Mr. and Mrs. Percy Cohen, and later they visited Sacramento for the fair, then at its height. The-.fair presented one of the greatest sights possible to find anywhere, Mr. DeCosta remarked, the record attendance being 100,000, and. the cattle exhibits alone being valued at a round £400,000. Later they made a tour to Yosemite Valley, where wild game abounds, and where a daily thrill is the feeding of the bears which run wild. These‘animals, are fed. from cars, and though they would swiftly account for a man afoot, they seen! undisturbed by the passage of the machines through their feeding-grounds.

Game-Law Contrasts. Game Jaws in Oilifornia are very strict, and while the Gisborne tourists were there, a man was sentenced to 2(35 days’ imprisonment for shooting a doe. Mr. DeCosta was hardly believed by his friends when he mentioned that tlie New Zealand Government pays' hunters to wipe out deer on a wholesale scale.

Fruit grows so prolideally in California that it is almost given away. Thousands of acres of orchards and vineyards pour their produce into the cities, and. grapes retail at libs, for odj and strawberries at Hid per chip. At a cannery visited by the tourists, peaches were being delivered by the truck-load, at a price of £2 15s per ton ; while tomatoes were being handled at a cost to the cannery of less than £2 per ton. There are no

threepenny oranges in California. Reference to produce reminded Mr. DeCosta that when he had been invited to speak at a Rotary gathering at Hayward, he took’the opportunity of advertising New Zealand’s agricultural and. pastoral products, and secured ai good hearing for them. Ho followed similar lines in addresses to the Chamber of Commerce at San Leandro, and elsewhere when, as a visitor to California, he was called on to speak. San Francisco is at present in difliculties with its “shipping trade, owing to the prevalence of longshoremen’s strikes, Mr. DeCosta found. When lie last visited that city, 14 years ago, there were 2000 men employed on the quays, but this year he found there were only about 200 employed. Owing to waterside troubles, shipping had been deflected to other ports, and the magnificent waterfront of San Franciscot was practically deserted-

The throe great bridges of San Francisco, connecting the city proper with neighbouring areas and opening up immense new possibilities of advancement, deeply impressed Mr. and Mrs. DeGoßta. The San M'atea bridge, hides long, the Golden Gate bridge, 2 miles in leiigtl}, andi the Ray bridge to Oakland, eight miles from pylon to pylon, represented an extraordinary outlay of capital, but they are expected to pay for themselves within a reasonable span of years, through the medium <>U tolls.

’Frisco Exhibition. The site of the San Francisco exhi-bition,-which is now being prepared, represents a typical example of enterprise in California. The site is an island, 400 acres in. extent, and, already planted with 7000 trees, some of which, weighing up to 10 tons, were transported lor hundreds of miles for transplanting there. Down the coast to Los Angeles, Mr. and Mrs. DeCosta. travelled by. the Da\light Limited, a streamlined train which reaches a. peak speed of 85 miles per hour without undue discojnfort lor the passengers. There they met many more friends, whose substantial homes and extensive business associations were in themselves impressive, hut who appeared to be ready to drop business at once to entertain visitors. The play-grounds of the well-to-do American business men and their families were generally most lavish, but by contrast Mr. DeCosta was introduced into a favoured cal o' where millionaires and those with slightly less matereial wealth goi periodically to cat pic made‘by an elderly woman, who conducts this establishment without help. The cafe is. not larger than an average room, but liig-lmsiness representatives find there a, degree 01. homeliness which seems to satisfy them thoroughly. Among the mementoes brought home from California by Mr. and Mrs. Do Costa is a business card autographed by. Eddie Douglas Corrigan, the genuine “Gone-Again” Corrigan, who flew the Atlantic in a coin me rcial freight-plane and explained that he intended to land at Los Angeles- It was through the good oHires of the Mayor of Sail Francisco that Mr. DeCnsta met tlie two notables, soon alter Corrigan’s return from thq epic* flight.