Dear American with its numerous readers; -- One more letter and this will likely be my last letter as we will be on the homeward road right soon. Looking over my diary leaves I find that February 23rd was a cloudy day with light showers. C.E. and Roger Boss and myself started for San Bernadino, California, to the orange show and back, a distance of 135 miles for the round trip. The fruit exhibits were wonderful, but even more so was the exhibit of machinery. Autos, tractors, pumping plants, gas burners, heaters, washing machines, edging tables, and many other kinds of machinery. They were enough to impress anyone as there were so much machinery and it would stay with the people so many years. There were over 50,000 tickets sold the day that we were there and it lasted all week.We drove around through Riverside and other small towns. Southern California seems made up of small towns all around the larger ones.

February 28th we took a drive to the Lincoln Park where the Iowa picnic was being held. This was the largest attendance, of any year in history, marking the silver anniversary of the Iowa association of southern California. The organization of former Iowans, which held its first re-union in Pasadena 25 years ago, has grown to membership of over 300,000.

There were over 100,000 Hawkeyes gathered at Lincoln Park. At the picnic each one takes his own dinner, and sitting on the ground or in the sun as preferred, the little gatherings enjoy their picnic and the social part as well. The various counties are set out the places, the places being designated to show when they came into the state and each one is placcarded in large letters [sic; as written]. Hence there is no trouble for anyone to find the home town. Then there is also a registrar there and each one is asked to give his present address, as well as the Post Office address in Iowa. This makes it comparatively easy to find home town people or to tally up the total number present. The governor of Iowa was to speak in the afternoon but as it was getting pretty warm we left for Long Beach by the sea where it was cooler.

This winter here has had only about 3 ˝ inches of rain fall and the people are apprehensive of another dry season. With two years of drought and the possibility of a third this year, the hot weather coming on will burn them out. If Coos county had only 3 ˝ inches of rain fall and then had as hot weather as they have here, you folks would realize what it means to have the land burned as hard as a brick, and any one would realize that would not produce a crop. Since I have been here I have seen orange, peach, and fig trees that were dried up until they were dead. What a smile would be on the face of a Californian if he could see what Elijah tells in I Kings 18-44, of the little cloud the size of a man’s hand. But here they have no assurance of rain.

In our homeland you people pray for it to stop raining and here they pray for it to rain, and they sure need it. We are planning to start for home in a few days, and if all is well, we shall be at home about the middle of this month.

Thomas Barklow