The record-union., 1891-01-29

ramento Valley that the land will give
satisfactory results with our annual rain
fall.
Mr.: President, Mans capacity for
profitable work is measured by the
| limitations nature has put upon him. In
the Dakotas and Minnesota and Nebraska
| ana lowa-not to mention other States
! the brake is put upon the farmer about
November and draws tighter and tighter
uGtll about March, and eases UP little
In April, and he gets fairly to earning
| something In May, after period of six
months of comfortable living from his
| earnings of the other six months. Now
contrast the capacity for profitable work
Win our frult-grOWer of North Califor-
| MA. His trees and his vines hardly stop
growing long enough to give him time
TO prune and clean up around his orchard
ana fruit houses and have a little recrea-
tlon In the holiday season and get ready
Tor ms next years crop. He prunes
~ December and January; he plants in
February, and in March he should have
his orchards well plowed. There is not a
day IN the year when the California
1rult-grower may not go out in his shirt
sleeves and add the value of days labor
to his property.
But, Mr.. President, with all these adj
vantages-and they are incalculable-we
have gained but little in population in
the last decade, except in our towns and
cities and a very few Individual locali-
ties.
WhatI is the cause and what is the
the remedy for this condition?
1t has puzzled many of our most earn
est and most Intelligent workers. We
seem poWerleSS to discover cause or
remedy for our slow growth. While the
transcontinental roads to the north of US
have been unable to carry passengers as
fast as they desire to go to that country,
our cars come in empty. A new man
from the East seeking a home among us
is a curiosity. Let us be frank and con-
feSS the truth.
will tell you what my solution of the
trouble is and my remedy. A few gem
eral principles may be stated as admitted.
People change their homes to better
their condition.
Families in search of homes are largely
influenced by first impressions.
Inc head OF a family-as its responsible
manager-judges a country by the appar-
ent prosperity of its oldest inhabitants.
The better and more desirable classes
OF hOfne-SeekerS come out of established
neighborhoods where society is stable;
where the courtesies and inequalities of
life are observed where school-houses
and churches abound and show signs of
loving and devoted hands; where neigh
bors are conveniently near, and where
the comforts of civilized life are found in
humble, as well as in exalted, places
Now, suppose man from such sur
| rounding comes with bis family to Cali
| fornia, allured by our rose-tinted pamph-
lets illustrated in many colors.
lie would not want to 60 to Santa Clara
Valley, where he would find the pamphlet
| justified, because land is held at two or
| three hundred dollars an acre there, and
he cannot afford to pay SO much; he
wants TO go where equally good land can
be found, and where the prune, the peach,
the pear, the apricot, and all our glorious
| fruits can be grown, and where land is
cheap-say $40 to 500 per acre. 1t Is to
be found almost anywhere north of Sac
| ramento. Suppose he makes the round
| trip from that city by the way of Marys-
| vile to Redding, and back by the way of
| willows. Here and there are oases-not
many--in this journey through an en-
| pire. Look at the stations built fifteen
Years ago by the railroad company; most
OF them are types of a worked-out and
| deserted country. Look at the villages
many of them treeless and forbidding,
with signs of decay; observe the horses
and wagons driven to town by the in
habitants; note the style of the houses;
observe the plentiful lack Of flowers and
| vines and shrubs in this land of the gods.
See the big two-story school-house
| "
dren as possible, and not a fence around
it, or a tree in sight, and in the country
the rectangular one-story wooden box,
set up on blocks, located with such impair
TALLY that it is placed equi-distant from
the remotest boundaries Of the district,
| with little regard to the residences of
pupils. In the winter it is a school-house
in the summer shade and stamping
ground for stock and a resort for trainps:
| and no grass, or trees, or vines, or any
living thing in sight for ornament.
AS rule, the farmers house is but lit
tie better than the school-houso, and but
little more adorned. Our home-seeker
! and piece Of sweet bread and butter and
little fruit. The humblest cot in over
| crowded Italy can give him these.
I'VE keep no COW and have no milk or
butter. The China peddler hasn't come
along yet, and we have no fruit" says the
housewife.
Oh, for little cool, shaded grass plot!
Oh, for some escape from this glaring hot
| sun, beating through the open windows
and door, and radiated from the hot
earth upon this patient wife and these
clinging children.
What do you grow on your land, my
good woman?'
Wheat and barley. My husband is in
the harvest field out yonder.'
"How far?''
ooh, about four miles,"
ION your land?'
will he be home to dinner?''
NO; they have kitchen and dining
room on the wagon, and they camp out
until they get through. The men sleep
around the machine and under the wagon
and wherever they like. We only kind
OF stop here in the summer and 90 to
town in the winter. My husband is run
ming behind raising wheat, but he saws
this is great fruit country, and some
| day these tenderfeet will come along and
give us big price for our land and go to
raising fruit, and then I suppose the
country will fill up and We'll get out of
| debt"
II our home-seeker had started from
| Orland and travelled in a Decline for
Colusa, he would probably have gone
| thirty miles and not been nearer than two
| miles to even so hospitable place I have
described, and nowhere in that vast ex-
panSe would he have found planted sim
gle fruit tree. What must he conclude?
He doubts our stories about the profita-
bleness of fruit-growing
lie hesitates to bring his family to such
forbidding environments.
He don't want to settle down where
there is so little hope of his having neigh
bors during his lifetime. He don't want
to subject his family to such life.
lie either goes home Disguised and be-
comes missionary to keep people away
from California, or he goes to some place
where faith is exhibited by works, and
pays high prices for land, and our region
remains neglected.
Ineed not dwell upon the condition of
orr SnarSaly-Sattlad ual1ay-if would H.