Broadcasting Telecasting (Jan-Mar 1956)

terey Bay, the sandy sweep of coastline that reaches north to Santa Cruz. Monterey Peninsula is a $20 million vacationland, site of famous celebrity golf courses like Pebble Beach and the quaint artists community of Carmel. But Carmel isn't merely quaint. It is a $16 million retail market all by itself. Monterey for 70 years was the colonial capital of California. Its historic sites assure it a spot in guide books. Individual cash incomes in the county jumped nearly 300% between 1940 and 1953, hitting $223 million in the latter year. Wages and salaries increased 367% during that period, to $121.5 million, or 54% of all income. Although considerable industrialization has occurred in the county and population has doubled in the past 15 years, agriculture tinues to be the principal source of wealth continues to be the principal source of wealth. Although farm land in cultivation has increased only moderately from 240,000 acres in 1940 to about 310,000 acres now, the intensity and mechanization of cultivation have realized greater yields. Most of the farm land is in the valleys of the Salinas, Pajaro and Carmel Rivers. These furnish water for irrigation and next year will be supplemented by a new $7 million dam on the Nacimiento River which will provide 100,000 acre-feet of new water as well as 350,000 acre-feet of storage. It will be poured into the Salinas River to replace the valley's water table, sucked lower by deep wells. Total value of farm products increased more than six-fold from $17.2 million in 1940 to $110.2 million in 1951. Then as farm prices declined, returns slid to $100.4 million in 1953 and were expected to climb back to $106 million last year. Lettuce is the most spectacular crop although it is only one of a score of big money vegetable and fruit crops for local farmers. Lettuce spiraled from $3.6 million in 1940 to a $45 million crop now. You can get an idea of why "lettuce" is often used as slang for money because a visit to Salinas will convince you it is the real item. Standing at the receiving entrance of a big lettuce cooperative in Salinas you understand. Trucks are coming in from the field, each stacked neatly full of cartons of newlypicked (by man and machine) heads of lettuce. The truck driver pulls onto the concrete apron under the massive shed and stops. A man riding a big fork-lift moves to the side and bites off, in a single grab, the entire truckload of cartons. Wheeling about, he scuttles across the shed to a track where a train of several loads is hooked together behind another small tractor. When the train-load of three or four bites is assembled, the train is pulled into a big tunnel-like machine which has mighty doors at each end. They lower snugly over the tunnel entrance. Man and tractor stand waiting outside as another worker steps to the side of the great machine, pushes some buttons and watches lights flash and dials begin to wiggle. He listens to sturdy pumps which pull at the air on the inside. The monster, a pair of tunnels side by side, is a patented vacuum cooling machine which within a few minutes lowers the temperature of the lettuce from that of the field to one degree above freezing. Two trainloads at a time. A $3.5 million patent purchase, just to cool lettuce. The dials show the full temperature drop so with a few more button pushes the pumping stops, the doors open and the trains are pulled up the shed to mechanical conveyors which flip the cartons into railroad refrigerator cars on an adjacent siding. Cooled this way, the lettuce will last three weeks, more than enough for the seven-day run to Chicago or the nine-day run to New York. Factory methods work just the same for carrots and the other crops. Lettuce may be the number one money crop and carrots the number two, but here, in order, are the other big-income crops which local folks cite to prove Salinas is the world's salad bowl: artichokes (1.27 million boxes in 1954, claiming world leadership), beans (all varieties), broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, celery, garlic, onions, green lima beans, peas, potatoes, radishes, spinach, brussel sprouts, sweet corn, sugar beets and tomatoes. Seven major fruits mean money in Monterey County. Almonds, apples, apricots, cherries, pecans, strawberries and walnuts rank in that order, with strawberries making a big play for the $10 million bracket as several thousand new acres were planted last year and frozen food packers waited to share the new wealth. Dairy products, cattle and poultry products each are multi-million dollar industries. In the past decade, the mineral wealth of Monterey County has been developing rapidly, up from $2.6 million in 1947 to better than $16 million. Magnesia, sand and gravel top the list while dolomite is being mined in considerable quantities and combined with sea water at Moss Landing on the coast by Kaiser Aluminum and Chemical Corp.'s new plant. Nearby is the Pacific Gas & Electric Co.'s $85 million steam generating plant, said to be the largest of its kind in the West. Local businessmen are trying to develop Moss Landing into a harbor facility. Manufacturing in the county continues to swell and factory payrolls, chiefly in food processing industries, exceed $12 million. Most are clustered in the Salinas district. Spreckles Sugar Co. maintains the world's largest sugar beet refinery near Salinas, with seasonal employment ranging up to 1,200. To illustrate its economic impact upon the market recently, it paid the first $50 of each wage earner's pay in $2 bills. Within 24 hours, $27,500 in $2 bills was in circulation, saturating the county. Taxable retail sales in the county have increased from $62 million in 1945 to about $140 million. SAN LUIS OBISPO COUNTY Slip south on U. S. 101 from Salinas along the old Mission Trail and two hours driving will put you in Paso Robles and another forty minutes in San Luis Obispo. Not big markets by California standards, these two communities nevertheless are growing trade TWO GREAT CALIFORNIA MARKETS ONLY KNTV Delivers BOTH 1. San Jose & fabulous Santa Clara County 2. Salinas-Monterey & the great Central Coast Counties (Monterey-Santa CruzSan Benito) THEY'RE RICH CALIFORNIA'S FOURTH MAR Taxable retail sales 1 955 (NOT including food & gasoline) $816,000,000 AND GROWING THE FASTEST GROWING AREA IN CALIFORNIA! population 1955 — 635,000 (Santa Clara County with a population of 456,800 had a 5 yr. INCREASE of 57.2%) ONE BUY gets complete Grade "A" coverage KNTV CHANNEL 11 San Jose Represented Nationally by The Boiling Company. Page 110 • January 30, 1956 Broadcasting • Telecasting