Fort Bragg’s ideal as center county’s trade

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FORT BRAGG IS IDEAL AS CENTER OF COUNTY'S TRADE Situated on the western coast of Mendocino county, about midway between San Francisco and Eureka, Fort Bragg is a natural center of commerce. It is already connected with the outside world by both water and rail transportation, but, at the present time, the home consumption of all products greatly exceeds the production. Fort Bragg, with a present population of about thirty-five hundred, is the largest city in Mendocino county and growing steadily. All that the modern city dweller expects is here: electric power, telephones everywhere, ideal sites, business houses of all kinds, manufacturing plants, good grammar schools, high schools, churches, two banks with assets amounting to $1,000,000, superb conditions for outdoor life, trout in every stream, big game in the forest-covered mountains, many medicinal springs with health-giving waters bubbling from the ground, deep-sea fishing along the coast, an unequaled climate, a wealth of redwood forest, and the truly wonderful growth of all products of the soil. Climate Good The temperature averages from forty-seven degrees to seventy degrees, with an average rainfall of about forty inches. Two Soils The superiority of the soil of cut-over redwood land is freely acknowledged by all for the raising of fruits, berries, vegetables, grains of all kinds, etc. There are two predominating kinds of soil; one a black, sandy loam; the other a reddish, sandy loam, of great depth, resting on a clay sub-soil. The abundant rainfall, the equable climate and the diversity of soil offers the agriculturist a wide choice, ranging from hog-raising, stock grazing, etc., on the one hand, to horticulture and dairying on the other. It is but a very small percentage of the land in the vicinity of Fort Bragg that cannot be successfully utilized. With many springs and streams and a rainfall so abundant and well distributed that crop failures have never been known, the successful cultivation of fruits, berries, vegetables and other products is merely a matter of care. Industries Some of the principal industries located at Fort Bragg are the immense saw mills and lumber manufacturing plants of the Union Lumber Company which alone employs hundreds of men; the Atlas Tank Manufacturing Co., producing the "everlasting" Redwood tanks; a shingle mill, a barrel factory, a first-class creamery, which is increasing the dairy business; a cannery, which is rapidly inducing the cultivation of peas, beans, other vegetables, berries, etc.; a cold storage and ice plant, two bottling works, and other industries. Apples Besides the general admirable fruit-growing conditions, the cut-over redwood lands seem to be pre-eminently fitted for the perfection of the apple. The chief characteristic of the product is the freedom from worms, the quality and size, and the enormous quantity of the production. The development of the land for the apple industry is being very rapidly advanced and is attracting great a…