Oh, land so rare, where such visions of delight are provided by the unseen powers for our delectation!  As I surveyed this vast acreage, evidencing the highest cultivation, with princely homes, vast systems of irrigation, with orange orchards and lemon groves in, every stage of development, from the plants in the seed beds to trees of maturity and full production, I congratulated myself on living in such an age, and amid such environments.

Let us appreciate, enjoy and defend until our dying day, this glorious land, unswept by blizzards, untouched by winter’s cruel frosts, unscathed by the torrid breath of sultry summer, a land of perpetual sunshine, where roses, carnations, heliotrope, and a thousand rare, choice and delicate flowers bloom in the open air continually, where in the spring time the senses are oppressed by the odor of orange and lemon blossoms, and where the orchards yield a harvest so fabulous in returns as to be almost beyond human comprehension.

An Auto Trip Through the Sierras.

Tule River and Yosemite.

I have been in California fifty-four years.  During all of this time I had never visited the Yosemite.  Before it was too late I determined to go there.  We started in June, 1911.

Accompanied by Mrs. Graves, my son Francis and a friend, Dr. A. C. Macleish, we left Alhambra, June seventh of this year at seven o’clock a. m.  We passed through Garvanza, Glendale and Tropico, and were soon on the San Fernando road.  The run through the town of that name and through the tunnel, recently constructed to avoid the Newhall grade, was made in good time and without incident.

Newhall.

At Newhall we procured and carried with us a five-gallon can of gasoline.  A short distance out of Saugus, we turned into the San Francisquito Canyon road.  Shortly afterwards a brand new inner tube on the right rear wheel went completely to pieces.  It had been too highly cured and could not stand the heat.  We replaced it with another one, and were soon crossing and recrossing the stream which meanders down the canyon.  Constantly climbing the grade, we were whirling from sunshine to shadow alternately as the road was overhung with or free from trees.

Old Memories Aroused.

I could not help recalling my trip over the same road with my old friend, Mr. A. C. Chauvin, on the third day of October, 1876.  The road was fairly good.  Our machine was working nicely, the day a pleasant one, and the trip enjoyable.  In a few hours we reached Elizabeth Lake.  I pointed out the very spot at which Chauvin and myself camped thirty-five years before.

Ah, the fleeting years!  How quickly they have sped!  What experiences we have had!  What pleasures we have enjoyed!  What sorrows endured in thirty-five years!  Well it is, that then the future was not unfolded to me, and that all the enthusiasm and hope and ambition of youth led me on to the goal, which has brought me so much joy, as well as much sorrow.  Momentous events have affected not only my own life, but the life of nations in these thirty-five years.