The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1910-03-18
LETTER FROM PACIFIC COAST

on these terms, though the water is
bad, and fever and ague and other ma
larial diseases are very prevalent. Here
around Linden, away from the river,
the land has good drainage and except
right after heavy rains the land is in
working condition all the winter
through for it absorbs water very
quickly. Right here in this neighbor-
hood and for four miles around there
is less waste land than ever saw
law and numbers of others in the
neighborhood, there is not a foot of
land that is not tillable. The size
of the oak trees scattered over the
fields prove the richness of the soil,
many of them being from five to six
feet in diameter. One just worked
up into stove wool on this farm has
twenty eight cords in it, and another
had fiftyseyen cords, stove length in
it. We are not right i'll the orchard
district here, though there are vine
yards all around, but most of the land
is in small grain, wheat and barley,
the latter being the horse feed when
ground. Egyptian corn takes the place
of our field corn, which is not grown
at all in this part of California. The
Egyptian corn is not unlike sugar cane
seed and the cane itself looks like
amber cane. The seed or corn is very
good chicken feed and it is also fed
extensively to hogs, horses and cattle.
For hay here they use oats, wheat or
barley cut green, and some little al
falfa. Alfalfa is the brag dope" used
by spectators in western lands as Il
come on boys" and make your fortune
out of one hay crop. Alas for the TO.
nance of the land booster when faced
by grim facts. The Stockton 'indc-
pendcnt's" market report quote hay
per ton at: Wheat, $l4 and $40, oats
$l2 and SIG, wild oats SO and Sl3, and
alfalfa at SO and SIP. That is this
wonderful alfalfa that has been SO eX-
tensively advertised as a gold pro-
Queer from dirt that beats the ia
nous philosophers tsone sells OH the
We visited the orchards OH the invita-.
ton of our German friend and his
wife and found the husband along with
two of his nephews spraying his fruit
trees. He used a force pump machine
with two MOBILES and sprayed two rows
-. L. H.
two young men walking behind the
wagon each taking row. The uncle
driving the team and working the
pump, a gymnastic feat that brought
the sweat. Not to hinder him in his
work, | got Oh the wagon and drove
the team, thus getting chance to
talk fruit growing with him and see
his fine orchard in full bud. 1t was a
grand sight, one never to be forgotten.
Most of the trees were almonds, april
cots and peaches but he had few of
many other kinds of nuts and fruit
trees. the buds of all being different
but all of them were beautiful. Our
daughter taught school in Linden for
two years Her husband is native
Californian SO we are not, the mother
and /, like strangers in a strange
land. This advantage gives us II fine
chance to see things, for there are no
lack of invitations to visit the neigh
bors. / merely write this to show
that my observations are not taken
in the bar room of hotel.
1uaSIav vro u,nro in,;@oJ tn
dinner by friends and sister Rebekahs
of the daughter, who live right in the
orchard district The folks are natives,
for it is here as it is in southern Min
nesota, most of the original settlers
have gone hence and the first genera
ton of natives have the floor at tn,
present time. They have fine farm
of 100 acres, are fine people and the
women folks put dinner before us
that matched the place and themselves.
Before we went home we drove quite
"a ways through the orchards, which
extend for miles on both sides of the
read. We also visited the Hunt Bros.
company's big fruit ranch of $50 acres
While there we saw a four nozzle
sprayer at work. 1t was run by al
gasoline engine, mounted on wagon
along with pump, tank of liquid, etc.
The wagon was drawn by four horses,
and another team hauled the spraying
liquid to the machine in the orchard.
1t took six men to run the outfit, the
engineer, who also drove the double !
team, one man to mix the dope and
hand it to the sprayer, and one man
to each nozzle. The spraying is done
under about 100 pounds pressure, and
is Il nasty job for teh hoscmen. Those |
on the Hunt company machine were
Japs, and they had their heads wrap
ped up to protect themselves from the
nasty poisonous stuff. Here is another |
case where the man is sacrificed to the |
dollar in doing things on q large scale.
The Hunt Bros. company have large
orchards around San Jose and i'll other |
parts of the state, the spraying of
which is a long job and has to be done
spring and fall The small orchardist
is not at it long enough to injurc his
health, but men like those Japs, who
are among the poisonous stuff day in
and day out are simply bartering their ,
lives away piece meal for mess OF
pOttagc It is the same in nearly |