The record-union. [volume] (Sacramento, Calif.) 1891-1903, 1892-09-26
INDUCING IMMIGRATION.
Why Large Land Holdings Should Be
Cut Up and Sold.
How the Solving of the Irrigation
Problem Has Tended to De-
velop the State.

A year ago there had been organized
under the Wright system thirty-three
irrigation districts, covering, in round
numbers, 100000 acres of land, for
which Sl1, 00O, 900 in bonds had been voted
and $4,000 900 worth sold. Outside en-
terprises in the State will closely approx
mate these figures. In most instances
this land has been devoted to grazing or
wheat farming. Under irrigation it be-
comes adapted to alfalfa and fruit. With
dairy, poultry, swine, orchard and vine
yard, we expect the irrigated sections to
become centerS of intensive farming.
Under the old regime $50 acres by annual
cropping, OR 500 acres by summer-fallow-
ing, may be considered average capacity
of one man to cultivate or the farm unit
in wheat growing.
Under intensive systems we must re-
duce the farm unit to twenty acres to
secure best average results.
Under the old system the combined
harvester, with a score of mules and a
human machine, calculated to run from
early dawn till dark, with neither wife
nor home nor any accessory OF clvllIZa-
ton to bring his annual earnings as grist
TO the whisky mill and end his weary
days in the public hospital, are the means
employed by the city landlord to cult
vate his thousands of acres. Under the
new regime we hope to see cottages en-
powered by flowers, surrounded by fruit
full trees, where the birds sing and happy
children play under the shade. This
means farm unit of twenty acres, peo-
pied by family of five, to bring custom
TO the butcher and the miller, the black
smith tho doctor and tho nraQnhnr 1T
means population on those lands one
hundred times as dense and an increase
of every branch OF business in like pro-
portion.
For the good of California the young,
energetic and ambitious, who have their
fortunes to make, should be coming to US
by trainloadS every day and Immediately
engage in productive industry. Before
voting the Wright District a large share
of the grain farmers had been increasing
their mortgages about as fast as nominal
values could be increased, by talking and
writing of the exceptional profits of fruit
culture under favorable conditions and
skillful management. A leading one
now in mind had increased its mortgage
from Sl75, 900 to 5000, while its owner
was gaining a reputation as among the
largest wheat-growers in the world. A
great deal of this land cost present own
ers 81 80 to So per acre, and the
continued cropping brings smaller crops
as sure as water runs down hill. They
will tell you that their soil is inexhaust-
ible, but read history, and you will fol-
low the wheat belt from Genesee Valley,
n. Y, to the Dakotas, and in some Cali
fornia valleys you have seen the yield
gradually sink from sixty bushels to
twenty per acre. Now, irrigation puts a
So mortgage and cost of maintenance of
dams and bitches ahead of all the other
mortgages on this land, some of which
cost less than that to begin with, and has
been losing in fertility and running the
owner deeper in debt under his past man
agement.
Now, if that land is worth 500 an acre
for fruit and will pay big interest on total
cost when improved, why not put in fruit
what you can handle and let some other
fellow have part at rate which will
give him share of what his enterprise
creates? Why sit like dogs in the manger
asking for raw land, prices based upon
prospective values when developed, and
waiting for the buyers that never come,
until the Sheriff sells you out one by one?
They will tell you of the profits of grain
raising a story not borne out by the
county records or their style of living.
No student of economic conditions in
California can doubt for a moment that a
heavy immigration is factor essential
to continued prosperity, nor can he shut
lis eyes W I1O 11Cb t1S1b ~ lloS dlIIlOSb ell
tirely ceased in spite of great and Or
ganized effort.
In seeking for the cause almost every
man will assign the one most commonly
discussed in the papers. But one swal-
low does not make summer, and what
causes can be more potent in discourage
ing immigration than the constant wall
in concert that we are slaves of the op-
pressor, and the idea that asking prices of
our real estate are based upon what it
might produce If somebody would only
improve it?
If any corporation or aggregation of
large interests would purchase some of
these large tracts of good land at prices at
which they must be sold when forced
upon the market, as they surely will be-
and subdivide and advertise it with a
view to the effect upon other interests,
rather than to sell each customer the
poorest land you can get him to take at
the highest price he will pay, it would
set the ball rolling and real estate men
would come out of the holes that they
crawled into four years ago and try to do
some of the business.
Now is good time. All those hundreds
of Eastern editors have settled back in
their easy chairs after having written
their complimentary editorials III recogni-
ton of our marvellous climate, fertile
soil boundleSs hospitality and wonderful
fruits. One thought above all others
seems to have impressed itself upon their
minds, viz: Those were truly blessed of
the gods who came to California at time
when poor man could get home.
They were not impressed as they should
have been with the truth that California
is to-day the best place on Gods green
earth for the man who is rich in days
work Nor with the connected PROPOSE
ton that it is not the one-lunged men
who come to end their days by the balmy
Pacific, meath the shade of the enchant-
ing orange, that life may gently ebb
away where breezes blow the softest, but
the man who comes with steady purpose,
strong arm and tireless industry to build