8o 2 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



fornia have been greatly benefited by the Exclusion Act. They 

 receive better wages than before, and in many cases better treat- 

 ment. The more enterprising among them show a tendency to 

 become land-renters, and in a few instances land-owners. A Chi- 

 naman's point of view is about this : that the soil, climate, and 

 opportunities of California suit him, and a " dollar and a quarter 

 a day " is as much of a bonanza to him as the " sixteen-dollar-a- 

 day diggings " were to the American Argonauts of 1849. He will 

 stay as long as he can get his wages, and, if the Exclusion Act is 

 strictly enforced, the chances are that his earnings will continue 

 to increase. He has trades-unions of his own, and whenever it 

 appears judicious, he strikes for higher wages and usually gets 

 them. The laws that protect him against the competition of other 

 workers of his own race are exactly to his mind. 



Speculation in California has taken a turn of late years. Few 

 persons invest in mining stocks any more, and there are not 

 many other speculative securities. The glories of Pine Street 

 and Pauper Alley have departed. Wealthy men who used to 

 gamble in " stocks " now buy mines instead. Twenty or thirty 

 California operators, who have left the street, have agents and 

 experts visiting every camp from Sonora to Alaska, and the act- 

 ual mine-workers have gradually secured nearly all the valuable 

 properties of the coast. Speculation in real estate has become the 

 form of investment among the poorer and middle classes. Town 

 lots in new towns have had their day, and acreage now " takes the 

 call." Over whole counties the farmers and fruit-growers are 

 mortgaging lands to buy more lands, believing that they never 

 will be so cheap again. The rule of the wheat-grower is that 

 thirty dollars an acre is as much as he can afford to pay, and ten 

 or twelve dollars is nearer the average cost of the grazing lands 

 now changing to wheat. The rule of the fruit-grower is that he 

 must have only the land that is exactly suited to the business, 

 and he can pay from fifty to two hundred dollars an acre for such 

 land, provided he has capital to plant it at once. 



Books of California travel, with hardly an exception, lay 

 stress on the restlessness of life here. "The whole State is for 

 sale" is a commonplace of the tourist. But the average Cali- 

 fornian farmer, instead of being a speculator, is as tenacious a 

 land-holder as a Pennsylvania Dutchman. During the whole 

 land speculation period in southern California, hundreds of Los 

 Angeles County ranchers went on raising corn and potatoes as 

 calmly as if the excitement had been a thousand miles away. 

 There are large and fertile counties where nearly every farm for 

 miles along the highways is owned by the man who "took it 

 up in the fifties," or is divided among his children. There are 

 rich valley townships where hardly three land transfers take 



