The Hawaiian gazette., 1907-05-17

netted me thirty dollars per day, or
when my net income exceeded thirty
thousand dollars per year"
For two successive years after that
young Horner went west as far as
Iowa in the spring, returning in the
autumn to teach school, and having no
inclination to settle west on his second
return east he married a neighbor's
daughter in January 1886
I'VE left my fathers house next
morning after marriage" he writes 5:
years later, ION what / may be permit
ted to call our wedding tour, for Cali
fornia, by the way of New York, Cape
Horn, Juan Fernandez Island and the
Sandwich Islands, having previ 'usly
engaged passage on an emigrant ship,
bound for that far off and almost un-
| known region, where we arrived in
about six months, which, with the
eighteen thousand miles Travelled, rem
ders this both in time and distance a
| rather uncommon wedding tour"
War between Mexico and the United
States was raging in California when
they arrived the upper part of the ter.
ritory being then in possession of the
United States forces and the lower
part soon following. Some of Horner's
ships company volunteered with Col.
Fremont to go down and help finish up
the work, and all the male members OF
his company took turns in standing
guard for about one month in what Is
now San Francisco. The number Of
inhabitants of Yerba Buena (now S. F.)
when they arrived there was said to
be forty, and the autobiographer says
their 16S persons made an addition of
about 400 per cent to the population.
Horner goes on to tell of contract
ing, along with a companion named
James Light, to put in a crop of wheat
| for DR.. John Marsh on shares. In
March, 1S47, Horner moved over to the
Mission de San Jose, where he planted
and sowed wheat, barley, peas and pos
/ tatoes, together with various truck fill
ing a nice garden, only to have all the
crops destroyed by grasshoppers, an
| affliction from which he never after
suffered in the thirty odd years he
farmed in that district. Later in the
season he planted potatoes but they
were destroyed by cattle. When he
| and Light called on DR.. Marsh for their
share of the wheat stored in his gran.
ary, he "gravely'' informed them that
their share was destroyed by elk. ante
lope, and other wild animals. and that
only his own share was harvested.
Though he got no dollars for his first
years farming in California, he did get
experience in soils, products and sea-
sons which he profited by in after
years. He early discovered that fen
cling was essential and in March. 1S49,
he went to the Redwoods with three
Indians, four yoke of oxen, and a wag-
on and tools, to get rails and posts.
| What with the fences he erected and
herdlng of cattle at night with a gun.
which he fired to scare and not hit
| them he saved his crop. The first
realization he had of his initial three
years farming was two dollars paid
him for watermelons in September OF
lS49
Gold hunters had by now swarmed
into the country and ON arrival nothing
seemed TO be craved by their appetites
so much as vegetables, Many of them
either had scurvy or We're threatened
by it. "They would eat a raw onion
or potato with as great and apparent
relish as though IL was niee-tiavored
apple" His crop was worth $4,000, but
he lost half his potatoes by flood.
Yet what he did gather he considered
a partial compensation for his long
struggle.
In January, 1850. his brother William,
then about u and bred to farming like
himself came to him by way of Pana-
ma. "By the blessing of heaven he
escaped the cholera ON the isthmus,
while his shipmates died by dozens
And he escaped starvation and perhaps
violent death, by a fair wind spring
ing up and waiting them safely into
Acapulco, at the critical moment when
the ships company were about to turn
cannibals ana cast lots To decide who
should be first eaten. My brother af-
forwards heard that. as he was more
ileshy than others OF the company, they
were going To make the lot fall on
him, "Crhis refers 10 William j. Hor'
ner. who died a few years ago in these
Islands, after a prosperous career as
a planter having. like his brother, also
served his adopted country as wise
legislatnrl
~ received him as partner In my
business John NJ Horner writes, I'VE
worked and nourished together the