The Worthington advance. [volume] (Worthington, Minn.) 1874-1908, 1897-12-30

Il Z s i
methods are not available in the real
estate business, but once inside his
doors our promoter asked odds of no
dealer and rarely failed of interesting
and convincing those who crossed his
threshold. His forte was frankness.
A plump and healthy-looking man, with
nothing sinister about him except
habit of looking out at his customers
from under shalf-closed eyelids, he re-
ceived them without effusion and
opened upon them in this manner:
Fruits in the window raised on our
lands? Certainly not. Our lands have
no improvements whatever upon them.
That's why we offer them so cheap
$3.50 per acre, and half on time. But
look at this map. Right here is our
property. Just seven miles north il
Highgrove, the famous orange colony;
these specimens were grown there.
Land worth 81 500 an acre. Ten miles
west of us is Colside-finest deciduous
land, except ours, in the state. These
cherries and apricots grew there. Come
in next week and see the early peaches
from that section. We combine the
advantages of both these communities.
Level, fertile land pure mountain
water. We can raise anything on earth.
Why has our tract not been improved
before? Because it takes large capital
to bring the water to it. We are capt.
talized at one million and can get more
if we need it. Here, take copy of our
prospectus-and, hold on, just fill your
pockets with fruit, and when you get
home tell your wife of this chance we
are offering people to secure home
and profitable business in the fruit
belt of California at a nominal cost.
We raise the price to 5000 per acre next
month. If You buy before you start
you get one-half your transportation"
Among many who heard this siren
song was young drug clerk, lately
married, who was looking about for
something better than the living af-
forded by his present employment.
After several visits to the land agent,
he one night astounded his wife with
the announcement that he had bought
ten acres of California land and had
given up his place in the store to 60
west. She cried little-women are so
deficient in enterprise, so fearful of the
new and untried-but early autumn
saw the plan carried out.
1t was in the month of September
that Fred Fisher and his wife first saw
their California fruit farm.
They were among the first arrivals in
the new colony, and the big field of
stubble still had few other settlers than
the wary jackrabbit and the whist]ing
quail. A row of white flags on laths.
showed the line of survey for a canal,
and parallel intersecting burrows at
regular intervals indicated the streets
and avenues. BY the aid of the map
furnished purchasers our clerk ,identi-
fed the ''choice" selection which he
had made, and knew so little of the re-
quirements of irrigation that he was
rather: pleased to find it upon little
knoll. Busy days followed; the cabin
which was to serve as dwelling until
more pretentious house should be built
from the profits of the orchard was soon
put up and occupied. Many other new
Corners were building near them.
when I get over my inconsistencies I
shall like this, Fred" said the wife one
day; ''that is, if we can make Z. living
here"
'There are twenty ways OF doing
that" he answered.; "and the man said
the orchard would be productive in
three years.
'But the water?" she questioned.
"Oh, the superintendent is sure the
canal will be finished before next
spring. and he says that I can have
work with the construction force all
winter"
Two years later the bubble had burst
and the canal company was hopeless
lyinsolvent. 1t had furnished much work
and little pay to Fred and to hundred
other settlers as unsophisticated as he.
The canal was Incomplete; not a drop
of water had ever reached the parched
soil upon the little knoll they called
their home. Even the customary rainy
season had failed them, and the effort
to raise crop of grain upon their small
holding had resulted only in loss of la
Dor and of seed. The wife had been
hopeful and helpful until the baby came
to the cabin for a little time and thence
to neighboring cemetery. Now she
was very i'll, and Fred was impover-
ished.
The old farmer had foreclosed on his
blanket mortgage, and already with
his gang plows was restoring the big
field to its former aspect. The cabins
that dotted it here and there, if not re-
moved by the settlers, were torn down
when the plows reached them. and only
ragged board piles and mounds of earth
where cellars had been dug marked
their former sites.
Fred took his wife to hospital in the
county town and she died there.
In few months the winter rains will
transform all the landscape into fields
OF living green. Then, out of the aban-
doned colony, the little cellar mounds
at each cabin site will look like sodded
graves.
Fred is in the Highland asylum.
But the promoter fares sumptuously
every day.-San Francisco Argonaut.
Objection to Stage Coaches,
In 1852 there were, strange as it