Excerpt from A Business Man's Estimate of Santa Barbara County, California: Its Climate, Soil and Products

This rose-colored style of representing our climate has come about naturally enough, I think, and in this way: The advantages of a residence in this climate are so apparent, so great, so mani fold, and the objections so infinitessimal, that we are apt to con sider only the/former, and to the latter are utterly oblivious. For example: Santa Barbara has been described as a climate of eternal sunshine - at least during six or eight months in the year. And to the permanent resident it makes just that impres sion. The daily rising of the sun without a cloud in the heavens, and continuing so all through the day, week after week and month after month, as has sometimes occurred, could make no other im pression. Still, it is not true that this is a climate without fogs or clouds, or winds, even in summer. Some seasons we have many days when the sun's rays are obscured by what are termed fi'fog clouds, from which, though no moisture at all may be experi enced, still the sun is obscured. We have also, and fortunately, low wet fogs, almost rain; at the very least, a heavy Scotch mist l I say fortunately, for they are an absolute necessity for the growth and the maturing of our crops. All cultivators of the soil in this county know how essential these fogs are to a plenti ful harvest. If it be'asked, Are not these fogs detrimental to health I answer, in some few cases they may be; the neuralgic patient may sometimes suffer some inconvenience from them, but as a rule, I do not believe they are injurious. And the simple reason is because they are very rarely, if ever, below a tempera ture of For myself, I can truly say I have experienced no inconvenience from them, notwithstanding I came hither six years ago, with my throat and lungs in a very sensitive and, to my friends, an alarming condition. But the eastern visitor, especially the visitor from the north Atlantic coast, dreads a. Dense fog - I speak from experience - next to his Satanic Majesty. But a fog on the Pacific coast of Southern California is a very different thing from a fog on the Atlantic coast, that of the North Atlantic coast being so cold that it penetrates to the very bones and marrow of the human system, While that of the South Atlantic, by increasing the moisture, aided by the intense heat of the sun, produces a rapid growth and speedy decay of vegeta ble matter, breeding that insidious and ever-to-be-dreaded enemy, malarial poison.

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