"Now the Lord God planted a garden East of Whittier in a place called Yorba Linda, and out of the ground he made to grow orange trees that were good for food and the fruits thereof he labeled SUNKIST ..." -- "The Begatting of a President"
Know'st thou the land where the lemon-trees bloom, Where the gold orange glows in the deep thicket's gloom, Where a wind ever soft from the blue heaven blows, And the groves of laurel and myrtle and rose?
Kazerun, the chief place of the district, is an unwalled town situated in the midst of the central plain, in 29° 37´ N., 51° 43´ E. at an elevation of 2800 ft., 70 m. from Shiraz, and 96 m. from Bushire. It has a population of about 8000, and is divided into four quarters separated by open spaces. Adjoining it on the W. is the famous Nazar garden, with noble avenues of orange trees planted by a former governor, Hajji Ali Kuli Khan, in 1767. A couple of miles N. of the city behind a low range of hills are the imposing ruins of a marble building said to stand over the grave of Sheik Amin ed din Mahommed b. Zia ed din Mas'ud, who died A.H. 740 (A.D. 1339). S.E. of the city on a huge mound are ruins of buildings with underground chambers, popularly known as Kal'eh i Gabr, "castle of the fire-worshippers." Entry: KAZERUN
JACKSONVILLE, a city and the county-seat of Duval county, Florida, U.S.A., in the N.E. part of the state, on the left bank of the St John's River, 14 m. from the Atlantic Ocean as the crow flies and about 27 m. by water. Pop. (1890), 17,201; (1900), 28,429, of whom 16,236 were negroes and 1166 foreign-born; (1910 census) 57,699; the city being the largest in the state. It is served by the Southern, the Atlantic Coast Line, the Seaboard Air Line, the Georgia Southern & Florida and the Florida East Coast railways, and by several steamship lines.[1] It is the largest railway centre in the state, and is popularly known as the Gate City of Florida. In appearance Jacksonville is very attractive. It has many handsome buildings, and its residential streets are shaded with live-oaks, water oaks and bitter-orange trees. Jacksonville is the seat of two schools for negroes, the Florida Baptist Academy and Cookman Institute (1872; Methodist Episcopal). Many winter visitors are annually attracted by the excellent climate, the mean temperature for the winter months being about 55° F. Among the places of interest in the vicinity is the large Florida ostrich farm. There are numerous municipal and other parks. The city owns and operates its electric-lighting plant and its water-works system. The capital invested in manufacturing increased from $1,857,844 in 1900 to $4,837,281 in 1905, or 160.4%, and the value of the factory product rose from $1,798,607 in 1900 to $5,340,264 in 1905, or 196.9%. Jacksonville is the most important distributing centre in Florida, and is a port of entry. In 1909 its foreign imports were valued at $513,439; its foreign exports at $2,507,373. Entry: JACKSONVILLE
The situation of the city between the mountains and the sea is attractive. The site of the business district is level, and its plan regular; the suburbs are laid out on hills. Although not specifically a health resort, Los Angeles enjoys a high reputation for its climate. From July 1877 to 1908 (inclusive) the mean of the minima for January, the coldest month of the year, was 44.16° F.; the mean of the minima for August, the warmest month, was 60.1° F.; and the difference of the mean temperature of the coldest and the warmest month was about 18° F.; while on five days only in this period (and on no day in the years 1904-1908) did the official thermometer fall below 32° F. There are various pleasure resorts in the mountains, and among seaside resorts are Santa Monica, Ocean Park, Venice, Playa del Rey, Hermosa, Redondo, Terminal Island, Long Beach, Alamitos Bay, Huntington Beach, Newport, Balboa and Corona del Mar. There are excellent roads throughout the country. Los Angeles has beautiful shade trees and a wealth of semi-tropic vegetation. Its residential portions are characterized by detached homes set in ample and beautiful grounds. Towering eucalyptus, graceful pepper trees, tropic palms, rubber trees, giant bananas, yuccas and a wonderful growth of roses, heliotrope, calla lilies in hedges, orange trees, jasmine, giant geraniums and other flowers beautify the city throughout the year. There are 22 parks, with about 3800 acres within or on the borders of the city limits; among the parks are Griffith (3015 acres), Elysian (532 acres), Eastlake (57 acres), Westlake (35 acres) and Echo (38 acres). The old Spanish-Moorish mission architecture has considerably influenced building styles. Among the important buildings are the Federal Building, the County Court House, the City Hall, a County Hall of Records, the Public Library with about 110,000 volumes in 1908, the large Auditorium and office buildings and the Woman's Club. The exhibit in the Chamber of Commerce Building illustrates the resources of southern California. Here also are the Coronel Collection, given in 1901 by Dona Mariana, the widow of Don Antonio Coronel, and containing relics of the Spanish and Mexican régime in California; and the Palmer Collection of Indian antiquities. In Los Angeles also are the collections of the Southwest Society (1904; for southern California, Arizona and New Mexico) of the Archaeological Institute of America. On the outskirts of the city, near Eastlake Park, is the Indian Crafts Exhibition, which contains rare collections of aboriginal handiwork, and where Indians may be seen making baskets, pottery and blankets. Of interest to visitors is that part of the city called Sonora Town, with its adobe houses, Mexican quarters, old Plaza and the Church of Our Lady, Queen of the Angels (first erected in 1822; rebuilt in 1861), which contains interesting paintings by early Indian converts. Near Sonora Town is the district known as Chinatown. The principal educational institutions are the University of Southern California (Methodist Episcopal, 1880), the Maclay College of Theology and a preparatory school; Occidental College (Presbyterian, 1887), St Vincent's College (Roman Catholic, founded 1865; chartered 1869) and the Los Angeles State Normal School (1882). Entry: LOS
Fruits normally form the principal crop; the total value for 1907-8 of the fruit crops of the state (including oranges, lemons, limes, grape-fruit, bananas, guavas, pears, peaches, grapes, figs, pecans, &c.) was $6,160,299, according to the report of the State Department of Agriculture. The discovery of Florida's adaptability to the culture of oranges about 1875 may be taken as the beginning of the state's modern industrial development. But the unusual severity of the winters of 1887, 1894 and 1899 (the report of the Twelfth Census which gives the figures for this year being therefore misleading) destroyed three-fourths of the orange trees, and caused an increased attention to stock-raising, and to various agricultural products. Orange culture has recovered much of its importance, but it is carried on in the more southern counties of the state. The cultivation of pineapples, in sub-tropical Florida, is proving successful, the product far surpassing that of California, the only other state in the Union in which pineapples are grown. Grape-fruit, guavas and lemons are also successfully produced in this part of the state. The cultivation of strawberries and vegetables (cabbage, cauliflower, beets, beans, tomatoes, egg-plant, cucumbers, water-melons, celery, &c.) for northern markets, and of orchard fruits, especially plums, pears and prunes, has likewise proved successful. In 1907-8, according to the State Department of Agriculture, the total value of vegetable and garden products was $3,928,657. In 1903, according to the statistics of the United States Department of Agriculture, Indian corn ranked next to fruits (as given in the state reports), but its product as compared with that of various other states is unimportant--in 1907 it amounted to 7,017,000 bushels only; rice is the only other cereal whose yield in 1899 was greater than that of 1889, but the Florida product was surpassed (in 1899) by that of the Carolinas, Georgia, Louisiana and Texas; in 1907 the product of rice in Florida (69,000 bushels) was less than that of Texas, Louisiana, South Carolina, Arkansas and Georgia severally. Tobacco culture, which declined after 1860 on account of the competition of Cuba and Sumatra, has revived since 1885 through the introduction of Cuban and Sumatran seed; the product of 1907 (6,937,500 lb.) was more than six times that of 1899, the product in 1899 (1,125,600 lb.) being more than twice that of 1889 (470,443 lb.), which in turn was more than twenty times that for 1880 (21,182 lb.)--the smallest production recorded for many decades. In 1907 the average farm price of tobacco was 45 cents per lb. higher than that of any other state. In 1899, 84% of the product was raised in Gadsden county. The sweet potato and pea-nut crops have also become very valuable; on the other hand the Census of 1900 showed a decline in acreage and production of cotton. In 1907 the acreage (265,000 acres) was less than in any cotton-growing state except Missouri and Virginia; the crop for 1907-1908 was 49,794 bales. Sea-island cotton of very high grade is grown in Alachua county. The production of sugar, begun by the early Spanish settlers, declined, but that of syrup increased. Pecan nuts are a promising crop, and many groves were planted after 1905. In 1900 there were more than 1,900,000 acres of land in the state unoccupied. The low lands of the South are being drained partly by the state and partly by private companies. Irrigation, introduced in 1888 by the orange growers, has been adopted by other farmers, especially the tobacco-growers of Gadsden county, and so the evil effects of the droughts, so common from February to June, are avoided. The value of farm property in the southern counties, which have been developed very recently, shows a steady increase, that of Hillsboro county surpassing the other counties of the state. In 1907-8, according to the state Department of Agriculture, the total value of all field crops (cotton, cereals, sugar-cane, hay and forage, sweet potatoes, &c.) was $11,856,340, and the total value of all farm products (including live stock, $20,817,804, poultry and products, $1,688,433, and dairy products, $1,728,642) was $46,371,320. Entry: A
Barcelona can be divided into three climatic zones; a temperate one near the sea, where even palm and orange trees grow; a colder one in the valleys and plains, more inland; and a colder still among the mountains, where not a few peaks are snow-clad for a great part of the year. Agriculture and stock-keeping are comparatively unimportant in this province, which is the centre of Spanish industry and commerce. In every direction the country looks like a veritable hive of human activity and enterprise, every town and village full of factories, and alive with the din of machinery. Lead, zinc, lignite, coal and salt are worked, and there are numerous mineral springs; but the prosperity of the province chiefly depends on its transit trade and manufactures. These are described in detail in articles on the chief towns. Barcelona (pop. 1900, 533,000), Badalona (19,240), Cardona (3855), Igualada (10,442), Manresa (23,252), Mataró (19,704), Sabadell (23,294), Tarrasa (15,956), Vich (11,628) and Villanueva y Geltru (11,856). Berga (5465), perhaps the Roman Castrum Bergium, on the Llobrégat, is the home of the Catalonian cotton industry. None of the rivers is navigable, and the roads are in general indifferent and insufficient. The province is better off in regard to railways, of which there are 349 m. Important lines radiate from the city of Barcelona north-east along the coast to Gerona and to Perpignan in France; south-west along the coast to Tarragona and Valencia; and west to Saragossa and Madrid. Several local railways link together the principal towns. For a general description of the people, and for the history of this region see CATALONIA. The population is greater and increases more rapidly than that of any other Spanish province, a fact due not to any large excess of births over deaths, but to the industrial life which attracts many immigrants. In the last quarter of the 19th century the increase exceeded 200,000, while the average yearly number of emigrants was below 2000. In point of education this province is quite among the first in Spain, and as far back as 1880 there were 97,077 children enrolled on the school registers; the figures have since steadily increased. Entry: BARCELONA
BATUM, a seaport of Russian Transcaucasia, in the government of and 90 m. by rail S.W. of the city of Kutais, on the S.E. shore of the Black Sea, in 41° 39' N. and 41° 38' E. Pop. (1875) 2000; (1900) 28,512, very mixed. The bay is being filled up by the sand carried into it by several small rivers. The town is protected by strong forts, and the anchorage has been greatly improved by artificial works. Batum possesses a cathedral, finished in 1903, and the Alexander Park, with sub-tropical vegetation. The climate is very warm, lemon and orange trees, magnolias and palms growing in the open air; but it is at the same time extremely wet and changeable. The annual rainfall (90 in.) is higher than anywhere in Caucasia, but it is very unequally distributed (23 in. in August and September, sometimes 16 in. in a couple of days), and the place is still most unhealthy. The town is connected by rail with the main Transcaucasian railway to Tiflis, and is the chief port for the export of naphtha and paraffin oil, carried hither in great part through pipes laid down from Baku, but partly also in tank railway-cars; other exports are wheat, manganese, wool, silkworm-cocoons, liquorice, maize and timber (total value of exports nearly 5½ millions sterling annually). The imports, chiefly tin plates and machinery, amount to less than half that total. Known as Bathys in antiquity, as Vati in the middle ages, and as Bathumi since the beginning of the 17th century, Batum belonged to the Turks, who strongly fortified it, down to 1878, when it was transferred to Russia. In the winter of 1905-1906 Batum was in the hands of the revolutionists, and a "reign of terror" lasted for several weeks. Entry: BATUM
ASHREF, a town of Persia in the province of Mazandaran, about 50 m. W. of Astarabad and 5 m. inland from the Caspian Sea, in 36° 42' N. and 53° 32' E. The population is about 6000, comprising descendants of some Georgians introduced by Shah Abbas I. (1587-1629) and a number of Gudars, a peculiar pariah race, probably of Indian origin. The place was without importance until 1612, when Shah Abbas began building and laying out the palaces and gardens in the neighbourhood now collectively known as Bagh i Shah (the garden of the shah). The palaces, completed in 1627, are now in ruins, but the gardens with their luxuriant vegetation and gigantic cypress and orange trees ate well worth a visit. There were originally six separate gardens, all contained within one large wall but separated one from another by high walls. The principal palace was the Chehel Situn (forty pillars), destroyed by the Afghans in 1723, and, although rebuilt by Nadir Shah in 1731, already in ruins in 1743. About ¾ m. north of the town is the Safi-abad garden, with a palace built by Shah Safi (1629-1642) for his daughter. It is situated on a lovely wooded hill, and was repaired and in part renovated about 1870 by Násiru'd-Din Shah. Entry: ASHREF
But the glory of Cordova, surpassing all its other Moorish or Christian buildings, is the _mezquita_, or mosque, now a cathedral, but originally founded on the site of a Roman temple and a Visigothic church by Abd-ar-Rahman I. (756-788), who wished to confirm the power of his caliphate by making its capital a great religious centre. Immigration from all the lands of Islam soon rendered a larger mosque necessary, owing to the greatly increased multitude of worshippers, and, by orders of Abd-ar-Rahman II. (822-852) and Al-Hakim II. (961-976), the original size was doubled. After various minor additions, Al-Mansur, the vizier of the caliph Hisham II. (976-1009), again enlarged the _Zeca_, or House of Purification, as the mosque was named, to twice its former size, rendering it the largest sacred building of Islam, after the Kaaba at Mecca. The ground plan of the completed mosque forms a rectangle, measuring 570 ft. in length and 425 in breadth, or little less than St Peter's in Rome. About one-third of this area is occupied by the courtyard, and the cloisters which surround it on the north, west and east. The exterior, with the straight lines of its square buttress towers, has a heavy and somewhat ungainly appearance; but the interior is one of the most beautiful specimens of Moorish architecture. Passing through a grand courtyard about 500 ft. in length, shady with palm and cypress and orange trees and watered by five fountains, the visitor enters on the south a magnificent and bewildering labyrinth of pillars in which porphyry, jasper and many-coloured marbles are boldly combined. Part came from the spoils of Nîmes or Narbonne, part from Seville or Tarragona, some from the older ruins of Carthage, and others as a present to Abd-ar-Rahman I. from the East Roman emperor Leo IV., who sent also from Constantinople his own skilled workmen, with 16 tons of tesserae for the mosaics. Originally of different heights, the pillars have been adjusted to their present standard of 12 ft. either by being sunk into the soil or by the addition of Corinthian capitals. Twelve hundred was the number of the columns in the original building, but many have been destroyed. The pillars divide the area of the building from north to south, longitudinally into nineteen and transversely into twenty-nine aisles--each row supporting a tier of open Moorish arches of the same height (12 ft.) with a third and similar tier superimposed upon the second. The full height of the ceiling is thus about 35 ft. The Moorish character of the building was unfortunately impaired in the 16th century by the formation in the interior of a _crucero_, or high altar and cruciform choir, by the addition of numerous chapels along the sides of the vast quadrangle, and by the erection of a belfry 300 ft. high in room of the old minaret. The _crucero_ in itself is no disgrace to the architect Hernan Ruiz, but every lover of art must sympathize with the rebuke administered by the emperor Charles V. (1500-1558) to the cathedral authorities: "You have built here what could have been built as well anywhere else; and you have destroyed what was unique in the world." Magnificent, indeed, as the cathedral still is, it is almost impossible to realize what the mosque must have been when the worshippers thronged through its nineteen gateways of bronze, and its 4700 lamps, fed with perfumed oil, illuminated its brilliant aisles. Of the exquisite elaboration bestowed on the more sacred portions abundant proof is afforded by the third _Mihrab_, or prayer-recess, a small 10th-century chapel, heptagonal in shape, roofed with a single shell-like block of snow-white marble, and inlaid with Byzantine mosaics of glass and gold. Entry: CORDOVA
_Fruit-growing._--Horticulture is now the principal industry, and in this field California has no rival in the United States, although ranking after Florida in the growth of some tropical or semi-tropical fruits,--pineapples, guava, limes, pomeloes or grape-fruit and Japanese persimmons. In 1899 California's output of fruit was more than a fifth of that of the whole Union. The supremacy of the state is established in the growth of oranges, lemons, citrons, olives, figs, almonds, Persian (or English) walnuts, plums and prunes, grapes and raisins, nectarines, apricots and pomegranates; it also leads in pears, and peaches, but here its primacy is not so assured. Southern California by no means monopolizes the warm-zone fruits. Oranges, lemons and walnuts come chiefly from that section, but citrus fruits grow splendidly in the Sierra foothills of the Sacramento Valley, and indeed ripen earlier there than in the southern district. Almonds, as well as peaches, pears, plums, cherries and apricots, come mainly from the north. Over half of the prune crop comes from Santa Clara county, and the bulk of the raisin output from Fresno county. Olives thrive as far north as the head of the Great Valley, growing in all the valleys and foothills up to 1500 or 2000 ft. They were introduced by the Franciscans (as were various other subtropical fruits, pears and grapes), but their scientific betterment and commercial importance date from about 1885. They grow very abundantly and of the finest quality; for many years poor methods of preparation prejudiced the market against the Californian product, but this has ceased to be the case. The modern orange industry practically began with the introduction into Southern California in 1873 of two seedless orange trees from Brazil; from their stock have been developed by budding millions of trees bearing a seedless fruit known as the "Washington navel," which now holds first rank in American markets; other varieties, mainly seedlings, are of great but secondary importance. Shipments continue the year round. There has been more than one horticultural excitement in California, but especially in orange culture, which was for a time almost as epidemic a fever as gold seeking once was. By reason of the co-operative effort demanded for the large problems of irrigation, packing and marketing, the citrus industry has done much for the permanent development of the state, and its extraordinary growth made it, towards the close of the 19th century, the most striking and most potent single influence in the growth of agriculture. State legislation has advanced the fruit interest in all possible ways. Between 1872 and 1903 exports of canned fruits increased from 91 to 94,205 short tons; between 1880 and 1903 the increase of dried fruit exports was from 295 to 149,531 tons; of fresh deciduous fruits, from 2590 to 101,199; of raisins, from 400 to 39,963; of citrus fruits, from 458 to 299,623; of wines and brandies between 1891 and 1903, from 47,651 to 97,332 tons. Of the shipments in 1903 some 44% were from Southern California,--i.e. from the seven southernmost counties. Entry: CALIFORNIA
It cannot be wondered at that his mind, generally so courageous, but now disturbed by the two strongest human passions, love and fear, was weakened even to the indulgence of superstitious thoughts. Although it was impossible that Valentine should see him, hidden as he was, he thought he heard the shadow at the window call him; his disturbed mind told him so. This double error became an irresistible reality, and by one of the incomprehensible transports of youth, he bounded from his hiding-place, and with two strides, at the risk of being seen, at the risk of alarming Valentine, at the risk of being discovered by some exclamation which might escape the young girl, he crossed the flower-garden, which by the light of the moon resembled a large white lake, and having passed the rows of orange<b>-trees which extended in front of the house, he reached the step, ran quickly up and pushed the door, which opened without offering any resistance. Valentine had not seen him. Her eyes, raised towards heaven, were watching a silvery cloud gliding over the azure, its form that of a shadow mounting towards heaven. Her poetic and excited mind pictured it as the soul of her grandmother.
A place of business in London like Tellson's place of business in Paris, would soon have driven the House out of its mind and into the Gazette. For, what would staid British responsibility and respectability have said to orange<b>-trees in boxes in a Bank courtyard, and even to a Cupid over the counter? Yet such things were. Tellson's had whitewashed the Cupid, but he was still to be seen on the ceiling, in the coolest linen, aiming (as he very often does) at money from morning to night. Bankruptcy must inevitably have come of this young Pagan, in Lombard-street, London, and also of a curtained alcove in the rear of the immortal boy, and also of a looking-glass let into the wall, and also of clerks not at all old, who danced in public on the slightest provocation. Yet, a French Tellson's could get on with these things exceedingly well, and, as long as the times held together, no man had taken fright at them, and drawn out his money.
A row of orange and lemon trees and jasmines, planted in green tubs, stood on the fairly wide terrace. According to Lebedeff, these trees gave the house a most delightful aspect. Some were there when he bought it, and he was so charmed with the effect that he promptly added to their number. When the tubs containing these plants arrived at the villa and were set in their places, Lebedeff kept running into the street to enjoy the view of the house, and every time he did so the rent to be demanded from the future tenant went up with a bound.