The morning call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1878-1895, 1893-12-10
THE MERGED EXPERIMENT.

The experiment which is now being
made in MERGED County by the Croker
estate is of the utmost importance to this
State. The whole State is plastered with
great tracts Of land in the ownership of
| single individuals or yndicates-Spanish
grants for the most part. but likewise in
many places the aggregation OF properties
purchased at various times from various
individuals atvarious prices. These tracts
have not been improved, partly because
they were too large to be improved except
by an enormous outlay of money, and they
have been held as entireties, because the
owners put on them value which they
could only bear if they were cut up into
farms and laid under the plow. Within
ten or fifteen years, as men have died,
heirs have tried to dstrbut these estates,
but they have found obstacles in the way,
chief among these being the impossibility
of attracting settlers to land which was
not irrigated and the great cost of building
irrigation works Tor vast estate. In the
MERGED case these difficulties have been
surrounded. The land has been irri-
gated at a cost of 81, 800, 900; it is sold with
water; and thus the only question is
whether people can be found TO buy 1t at
the value set upon it by the owners.
Similar experiments made by the Hag-
gin-Tevis syndicate and by the Miller &
Lux estate are understood not to have
been successes. 1t was admitted that the
land was cheap, dirt cheap. as compared
with land in Illinois. New York, Germany.
England or Ireland. 1t was demonstrated
that ii yielded larger income in proper
| ton to its cost than farm land anywhere.
1t promised its owner that which Eastern
agricultural land rarely yields, a good
living during his years of vigor, and a
small competency for his old age. Yet,
somehow, buyers were scarce, and where
sales were forced, as they were at one
time in Kern County, the prices realized
were out of all proportion to values. II
will be understood that these California
lands were intended for restricted class
OF settlers. They are beyond the reach of
the ordinary impecuniOus European immi-
grant. They do not suit the son of the
American farmer, whose chief capital is
his brain and a pair of strong hands.
Neither of these two can afford to buy
such land, or even to make the first pay
ment where the land is sold on credit.
They can do better in Dakota or Mime
SOba. Ho GLASS lUE MulCu NdlllUIuld ldDUS
are designed is men of small means-say
$4,000 to S10.O00-and. if possible, some
experience in farming. And the idea is
that they shall buy forty acres. plant half
in fruits and live upon the other half until
their trees come into bearing.
There is such class, not only in the
East, but throughout Western Europe,
and all that the MERGED company needs is
to capture one thousand of them. But to
capture one thousand great many thou
sand must be made acquainted with the
facts. Experience in the river valleys is
very uniform on the subject. By dint of
Dining into the mind of a community in
New York OF New England or old Eng
land or Scotland or Germany or Scandi-
navia that farmers could better their con-
dition by migrating TO Kansas or Ne
brasga or Minnesota. few daring settlers
were induced to pitch their tents on the
praries; they prospered, and wrote home
for their friends; these came in driblets, year
by year, and so in time a colony was es-
tablshed. But the DINING had to be kept
up for long time, and had to be patient
and intelligent.
The same course will have to be pursued
here. California, and that portion of il
which is included in MERGED County, are
imperfectly understood on both shores of
the Atlantic. Nordhoff and Bret Harte
did something to dispe public ignora nee
regarding this portion of the continent,
but they are ancient history now; the
growing generation in the East and in
Europe know little more about this State
than we know of Alaska. What The pro-
| jectors of the new colony want to accom-
plish is to set outsiders talking about Cali
forDia and MERGED County, so that. as il
were, unconsciously they should begin to
feel curiosity about both, and to inquire
whether perchance they might not be the
land of promise.