The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1905-07-25
WHAT LAND GRANTS
DID TO CALIFORNIA
If the Spanish Grants Had Not Existed tho
Population Would Be 100000
More Than 1t is.

white trash,'' possessing only the alter
native of emigration or the degra5a-
ton of perpetual ignorance and p"V-
erty.
The agricultural and horticultural
products of California make bette: re-
turns for labor than those of Ohio, IN
diana or Illinois, and yet these latter
commemorative We're built UP by white
labor only. The system of land hold n g
in those States did not invite the semi
slavery of the "coolie'' Or the Deon. The
poor man acquired his land, and, how
ever small the quantity, he became
self-supporting, then independent, then
prosperous and, later, rich. He had tie
hope of this goal to inspire his industry
and thrift. The sons Of farmers Eeca'.'e
land owners, and their daughters wives
of land owners. The poor boy was rich
in his heirship Of opportunity, and rtr-
petual poverty existed only where the
attributes of character imposed that
condition as an inevitable penalty.
There is a vineyard comprising 5000
acres at Vina, California. From 80 to
IS laborers could prune this vineyard;
$50 could cultivate it, while it would
the vintage. Such a vineyard was. from
the outset, and in the very nature of
things, an industrial absurdity. There
was, Independent of it's reliance upon
Chinese labor, no Industrial system
supplementing such an enterprise.
In the same general vicinity there
was one wheat farm of 5000 acres, af-
fording employment at two brief sea-
sons of the year-seed time and harvest
leaving a hiatus of at least seven
months in each year when it afforded
no employment whatever. These are
extreme instances, but a vineyard of
even 500 acres is an industrial absurd
ity, and a farm of 5000 a displacement
of civilized conditions. The boast of
bigness has been the bane of our in
dustrial development.
Under a system of small land hold
ings. with diversified field culture, every
object of cultivation is prOfita BILE, be-
cause produced by labor that would
otherwise be unproductive. The aggre-
gate of ten acres of orchard on each of
1000 of holdings, is 10000 acres. In
ten-acre holdings the cultivation, pick
ing and shipping of fruit would not
tivator, his family and the surplus of
labor which density of settlement will
always supply. One thousand ten-acre
orchards would utilize and be the prod
uct of otherwise unused labor on the
farm and while the single orchard of
10000 acres cannot by any possibility
be profitable, 1000 ten-acre orchards
can be highly profitable to the owners
and to the commonwealth.
Beyond this question of profit there
is the still more important one relating
to the character of the citizenship
which that form of industry will en-
gender and maintain. The magnitude
of profit, however great it may be, does
not compensate for the creation of an
industrial system which relegates the
of the common life of our own
people to a condition of perpetual
poverty.
Large land holding. even Invested of
its natural cOncomitant of servile or
slave labor. is the uncompromising |
enemy o. he common life. The earth |
is the pr,n'ary source of all wealth. |
The cultivation of the soil is the sole |
upon which the industrial and |
commercial fabric of the world stands. |
of the soil is a usurpation ,
right of self-subsstence. While the
condition of the fertile |
lands of California is maintained, its |
growth in the higher attributes of civil |
lization will be INSTRUCTED and retarded.