SOCIAL CHANGES IN CALIFORNIA. 799 



plenty of brain-work, and he is selling in the world's markets. 

 Many a California grower of raisins, oranges, walnuts, olives, 

 prunes, or other horticultural products goes to Chicago and New 

 York every autumn, " to keep the run of the field." The drift of 

 Pacific coast life is toward a rapid increase of the number of 

 orchardists. They are organized, too, in a manner unknown 

 among the farmers, and have several times shown unsuspected 

 courage in independent politics. Some of these days professional 

 politicians will have to deal with a new factor the horticulturist, 

 a distinct evolution from the conservative American farmer type, 

 quicker of brain, less wedded to party bonds, and more capable of 

 understanding the interests of the commonwealth. 



This rapid review of some important economic changes of the 

 past fifty years leads naturally to the consideration of the present 

 conditions of life in California. Wages are still high, and all 

 classes of workers should be prosperous. The resources of the 

 State are being developed at a marvelous rate. In 1880 the popu- 

 lation of California was 864,000, and the assessed value of all the 

 property in the State was $504,578,036. " Assessed value," in 

 California, means " that amount which the property would bring 

 at a forced sale." In January, 1890, the estimated population was 

 1,465,000, and the assessed value of property was $1,112,000,000. 

 The deposits in the savings-banks averaged over $87,000,000, and 

 were widely distributed. The assessors' returns for the counties 

 show that lands in city and country, and their improvements, are 

 well divided up among the people, and California is becoming a 

 State of moderate-sized farms and fair but not large incomes. 



The wages of ordinary farm hands in California range from 

 twenty-five to thirty-five dollars a month, usually with board. 

 Portuguese, who are already the peasantry of the rich valleys 

 near the bay of San Francisco, expect from twenty-six to thirty 

 dollars, and board themselves. They own small tracts of a few 

 acres, "work out" most of the time, and are a fairly capable 

 though slow class of laborers. Chinese, who are expert in garden 

 and orchard work, are paid the same as the Portuguese. Italians 

 in the vineyards rate at about thirty-five dollars, and board them- 

 selves. Skilled labor in some departments of farm and orchard 

 work commands forty or forty-five dollars a month. Pruners, 

 grafters, fruit-packers, teamsters, obtain such wages, and in the 

 lumber districts Americans often get fifty dollars. Commissioner 

 Tobin's report for 1887-88 gives the statistics of wages paid in 

 California and other places, and a few comparisons with New 

 York wages will serve to illustrate the subject. California brick- 

 layers rate at thirty dollars a week as against twenty dollars in 

 New York ; carpenters, twenty-one dollars as against fourteen ; ma- 

 sons, thirty dollars as against eighteen ; blacksmiths, twenty-one 



