198 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



might then plant his vine and his fig tree had no reasonable assurance that 

 he would be permitted to repose in peace under their shade. Spanish grants 

 sprung up as thickly as did the armed men from the dragon-teeth sown by 

 Cadmus, and were quite as dangerous. 



They oftentimes overlapped each other, and the settler could not deter- 

 mine whether they would slay his claim as a preemptor, slay each other, 

 or be themselves slain by adjudications of the Courts. He could not 

 safely buy the Spanish title ; he could not with safety fight it. E verything 

 as to land titles was involved in uncertainty; and the settler could not be 

 expected to plant a vineyard, the fruits of which he might not be permit- 

 ted to eat, or to dig a well, the waters of which he might not be permitted 

 to drink. Again, in the first years of California as a State, the two prin- 

 cipal industries of California were those of mining and cattle raising. 

 The counties of the State were then divided into what were known as the 

 mining counties and the cow counties. The cattle owners required large 

 ranges to make stock raising profitable; they controlled to a large extent 

 the early legislative policy of the State, and that policy was, as might 

 have been expected, favorable to large land holders. When wheat cult- 

 ure succeeded largely cattle raising, the farmer, with his many acres, 

 plowed and seeded them with the aid of hired help, and then, when 

 seeding time was ended for the season, would sit down idly to await the 

 maturity of his crops; and his hired men, in the interval between seeding 

 time and harvest, being without employment, became tramps looking for 

 work, often, however, spending first in the brothels and saloons of the cities 

 the wages received for their winter's work. During the few months of the 

 harvesting season these laborers again found brief employment, to be follow- 

 ed by months of idleness, and often of dissipation, and of tramping once 

 more, seeking employment. The wheat-growing farmer purchased for home 

 consumption in the city markets vegetables, meat, butter, eggs, flour — every-" 

 thing he and his family consumed. His sole source of income was from 

 the sale of his wheat crop, and should any surplus remain after meeting 

 the expenditures of the previous year, it was used in adding to the acre- 

 age of his already too large landed estate. 



His sons, the natural energy of whose youth required active employment 

 of body or of mind, tiring of the monotony of such farm life, with nothing 

 there to do save for a few months during the year, naturally would seek the 

 more congenial companionship to be found in our villages and cities, and 

 thus would lose the love of home life, so requisite to a sturdy yeomanry. 



Our farm wage-winners, from the want of constant employment, would, 

 during the months of their forced idleness, expend the wages they had 

 earned during the time they worked, and thus would save no surplus 

 of their labor-earned money, to provide for themselves homes. They had 

 no homes; they reared no families. 



In the Northern and Eastern States the land holdings are small; but 

 from his small farm there, the husbandman produces most of the necessa- 

 ries, and many of the real luxuries of life; his farmhouse is substantial 

 and comfortable; his barns, sheds, and granaries are large and commodi- 

 ous; his land is conveniently divided by substantial fences, into small 

 fields, suitable for the varied pursuits of grain and vegetable growing, and 

 for grazing; near his house is his small orchard and garden, which pro- 

 duce for home consumption his fruit and his vegetables; his hennery pro- 

 vides him with poultry and eggs; a few cows of the most approved breed 

 furnish butter and milk; a few sheep provide him with mutton and wool; 

 a few pigs, raised and fattened on products of the farm, which here would 

 be permitted to waste, give him pork and bacon; a few horses, of good 



