By C.R.B. 

Los Angeles, Early 1960’s:  Neither looking to the right nor left, I headed out the San Bernardino Freeway and then on to Hwy. 66 up through the Cajon Pass skirting the Hesperia development, then through Victorville past the large cement plant.  Stopped for a coffee break in Barstow.  Barstow is one of the most active of all the desert towns and is growing very rapidly in a commercial way.  There are plenty of restaurants, gas stations and motels, but everything costs more in Barstow, I believe, than in any other place in Southern California.  The merchants in this town must all be rich.  Barstow is still a one-street town several miles long, hemmed in by the Mojave River and the railroad on the north and Government land on the south.  This booming desert city does not spread out like other fast growing western communities.  Seems to be plenty of room over in the Hinckley Valley area, but for some reason there is no noticeable development in that direction. 

I am getting off the subject—Started out from Los Angeles headed for Newberry and the now famous tomato patch of Mike Valoria.  There’s  a reason—I was born in Brooklyn, N.Y., 70 years ago.  Spent all my life either drilling oil wells, digging gold mines or developing new town sites in the wide open spaces.  Never slept all night on a farm in my life, and now I have got to tell you about a young man who is doing a fabulous job of growing tomatoes in the Silver Valley at Newberry—I’m scared—anyhow here goes. 

Newberry is the post office and commercial center of a very beautiful valley and located on Hwy. 66, twenty miles east of Barstow.  Newberry has an abundance of water at shallow depth, fertile soil and an altitude of about 2,000 feet.  Well out into the center of the valley is the ranch of Mike P. Valoria where tomatoes are being grown like they grow them no where else.  Mike toiled for 22 years as a vegetable grower before moving to Newberry and was very successful.  Mike, it seems, got the idea in his head he wanted to find the perfect location for railing out-of-season vegetables under plastic.  We are told that Mike, after several months of investigation in many parts of California, decided that Newberry was to be the place where he was to grow out of season vegetables, and do it under plastic.

Some 5 years later, after spending approximately $50,000 in experimentation, he is now ready for production.  At the present time Mike has 47, 250 sq. ft. under plastic, which is a little over one acre.  He is growing to build another two acres under plastic for the coming season.  He expects that this seasons production, starting in December through April, on one acre, should be in excess of 120 tons of tomatoes.  Based on the average price per lug of tomatoes on the Los Angeles market (by Federal Department of Agriculture) during the months of production in previous years, the gross income will possibly be in excess of $60,000 per acre.

Mike advises the inexperienced hot house grower should realize that there are many hazards in growing vegetables in hot houses and that one should be properly advised before investing too much money.  It is his opinion that this business will expand rapidly in the Newberry area because of ideal climatic conditions and that in the foreseeable future raising vegetables in hot houses under plastic will become a world-wide boom to farmers.  We understand that John W. Drake, manager of Security First National Bank of Barstow, was of great assistance to Valoria during those long hard years of experimentation.  From Southwest Land Journal