imported into San Francisco and Portland, to be used on the Pacific system. When these rails have been laid very little light-weight steel will remain on the lines of heavy traffic. Eight hundred miles of lighter rails will be replaced by eighty-pound rails this year.

Other improvements in equipment consist of cars and locomotives, which will include 625 oil tank cars of 12,850 gallons capacity; eighty Baldwin locomotives; 1000 forty-ton flat cars; 1600 forty-ton box cars, and 500 stock cars. Barney & Smith will deliver twenty-five additional coaches in June and the Pullman Company has contracted to furnish 100 of the latest and most comfortable modern chair cars.

A line known as the Imperial and Gulf branch of the Los Angeles division of this company has recently been opened and is now in active operation. This road runs from a point on the Los Angeles division known as Old Beach to the town of Imperial on the Imperial settlements. This new line renders travel easy to over 500,000 acres of very rich land on the Colorado delta, San Diego county, California. The lands are at the present time being irrigated by 300 miles of canals, the water of which is taken from the Colorado river near Yuma.

The Reflector of Napa, California, has this appreciation of the work of the California Promotion Committee in a recent issue:

"This company of leading citizens and volunteer workers for the progress and prosperity of our state has sent out a surprising volume of state and county literature during the past few months. Lecturers have traveled east. Correspondence has been had with almost every state in the Union, besides the territories and foreign lands. This potent work has resulted in the incoming of a large number of desirable settlers, whose record now amounts to more than twenty thousand persons. During no winter has San Francisco had so many visitors as during the season just past. The circular of the committee shows an immense amount of work done in and for the interest of our state. gentlemen of the committee deserve the thanks and financial support of our people for their fruitful efforts for the good of our whole people."

The

197

Francisco schools. He has been awarded several gold medals at the Midwinter and State fairs, and his forthcoming water-color, "The Coming Day," is destined to add to his popularity.

Southern California during 1902 produced dairy products to the value of $18,323,556. If to these items one were to add the value of the poultry products, the honey output, the nursery stock, flowers and seeds, and other miscellaneous income derived from the land, it would doubtless bring the sum total up to at least $100,000,000 per annum.

Almonds can be successfully grown for commercial purposes in almost every section of Southern California. The essential fact to bear in mind, however, is that they must be grown in places where there is little frost. The best locations may be in the valleys or high up on the mesas, but they must be comparatively frostless.

In the matter of live stock California farms are well equipped, having four times as many sheep and more cattle and swine than all New England. The California dairy farms are equal to those of Holland and the average price of dairy stock averages $4 above the same class of cattle elsewhere.

With

San Francisco harbor is the largest landlocked deep sea harbor in the world. its 450 square miles it is only exceeded in actual water surface by two South American ports, while in facilities for vessels drawing deep water it is first by more than 128 square miles. Upon its surface the navies of the world could be assembled, and it might serve the arena of such a naval combat as has never been witnessed. The armored cruisers of Great Britain and Russia if placed in San Francisco harbor at the furthest opposite points of which their draught permits could not appreciably damage one another, and, in fact, their thirteen-inch shells would hardly be effective at a point midway between the two. San Francisco harbor is the strategic and natural shipping point to the Orient and is the key which unlocks the golden gate to the treasures of Australasia.

California is a land of contrasts. In Death valley it has the deepest valley in the United States, and in Mount Whitney the highest peak. It produces more raisins, plums, prunes, oranges and honey than all the rest of the union. Its trees are the largest in the world, so are its asparagus beds, celery fields and garden seed plantations. In the cultivated portion its climate is the most equable and its lands the most fertile, yet in the southern deserts, even the hardy cactus can scarcely thrive and the temperature ranges from 135 degrees Farenheit to the chilling cold of a hailstorm, a cloud burst or an unexpected fierce "norther."

IRVING M. SCOTT

Irving M. Scott, the great ship builder and general manager of the Union Iron Works, died at his home in San Francisco, April 28th, aged sixty-five years. His life was an ideal one, full of deeds accomplished. He found a new way to serve his fellow men. He made his way up unaided from the very beginning, and the Union Iron Works will forever stand as a reminder to the American youth of his possibilities.

Mr. Scott was born in Maryland on Christmas day, 1837. His father was a clergyman and he began his life work at a very early age. A short course in the Milton Academy of Baltimore completed his student career, and he went to work in the machine shop of Obed Hussey, the man who invented the first reaping machine. He advanced slowly at first, but he persevered and at the age of twenty-six was a qualified draughtsman. In that year, 1853, he came to California, and entered the employ of Peter Donohoe, at that time conducting a foundry. After twelve years of faithful and efficient service Mr. Scott became member of the firm, and a few years later the whole plant came into the possession of Mr. Scott and his brother, Henry T. Scott.

a

were and are now being constructed by the Union Iron Works, but it is as the builder of the mighty Oregon that Irving M. Scott will be remembered in history.

Mr. Scott, for a short time, was director of the Central Pacific Railroad and for a number of years was a member of the board of trustees of Stanford University. He was held in high esteem as a citizen of California and was frequently mentioned as a favorite candidate for the United States Senatorship. Mr. Scott was a man of simple tastes and because of this and a sentimental regard he

always cherished for

his old home on Rincon Hill he never moved from that once fashionable quarter, even after the district had relegated to cheap tenements and machine shops. It was there that he died. His death is a loss not only to California but to the

whole

He was a

country. great American.

JAMES BARKER "The Katy Way" will miss the strong, sure hand of James Barker. He passed away at his home in St. Louis in March, 1903. Beginning his career as a railroad man early in life, at different times he served in the passenger department of several of the leading lines in America. His genial, kindly manner in dealing with people made him justly popular with the traveling public, and his broad sympathy made him esteemed by all who knew him.

When the battle ship Oregon, built at the Union Iron Works, steamed its way from the Pacific ocean around the Horn in time to participate in the most memorable naval battle of modern times, Mr. Scott's name was in the mouth of every American. Day after day the Nation awaited anxiously for news of the great battle ship, and when she finally completed her trip and joined the fleet in Cuban waters without having been delayed a single day because of repairs the fame of Irving M. Scott and the Union Iron Works resounded throughout the world. Many other important vessels in the United States Navy

In 1893 he became general passenger agent of the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railway, the position he occupied at the time of his death. He improved the passenger service of all the roads with which he was connected, and was particularly interested in travel to and from California. Under his direction the M. K. & T. secured a large share of this important traffic.