740 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



wool, and the hop interest, and yet its comfortable, convenient country 

 homes can almost be counted upon one's ringers, and in this respect we 

 are no exception. Over the length and breadth of California, even wealthy 

 families live in dark, weather-beaten houses, unembellished by either paint 

 or whitewash; they have lived, some of them, in the same spot for twenty 

 years, yet scarcely a shrub or tree adorns their premises; they have not a 

 convenient outhouse of any description, they do their washing under a tree, 

 and boil their clothes in the pot they scald the hogs in. Almost in filth, 

 and amid inconveniences of every description, many accumulate wealth 

 year after year, for the land yields and increases in value in the face of 

 bad management, and stock will increase and grow. We have glanced at 

 the condition of the farm laborer under such circumstances — what think 

 you of the situation of the farmer's wife, under like condition — the farm- 

 er's wife who lives on a California farm ? Her fate it is to be a household 

 drudge, until mind and soul stagnate and flesh and bone are worn out by 

 uncongenial surroundings ; and the wear and fret of a life at constant war 

 with discomfort. She wishes a better and more convenient house — let her 

 wait until that other piece of land is bought up. She would like a bath- 

 room or a well arranged cool milk-house — there is no time to see about it 

 now, the crops must be put in. She yearns for a wood-house, so that she 

 need not step into the broiling sun, or the wet and slush of winter, every 

 time the fire is to be replenished — wait, the crop is now ready for harvest. 

 It has ever been woman's peculiar mission to beautify and to refine. 

 Uncongenial surrounding, devoid of taste or convenience, are to woman 

 a continual heart-break, therefore she longs for a few plants and trees — for 

 in the heart of woman lingers the inherited love of flowers, such flowers as 

 our first mother lamented when she turned from her lost Eden. If there is 

 a woman here who reads the grand works of John Milton, turn the leaves 

 of her "Paradise Lost" and you will find marked and underlined that 

 lament of Eve, for "those flowers that never will in other climate grow." 

 This inherited love of flowers, and the beautiful, is strong as life itself. 

 Then she is growing older, she is not so well as she might be, family cares, 

 and working for long years thwarted and hopeless of change, have broken 

 her, she would like help once or twice a year, in the busy times, but the 

 house is so small there is no convenience for help — she has always been in 

 the habit of rising, sick or well, at four or six o'clock to cook for thrashers, 

 or prepare for shearers, and ought to be used to it by this time. The farmer 

 usually keeps a hired man the year round, with extra help at seed time 

 and harvest. He visits San Francisco, sometimes twice a year, and on 

 such occasions he takes a bath, and gets shaved, and so has a taste of 

 cleanliness and comfort. Viewed with the impartial eye of justice, the 

 condition of the Chinese laborer on the ordinary California farm is an 

 enviable one contrasted with that of the farmer's wife. I would say to 

 such farmers, "you are living poor to die rich;" no matter what your pos- 

 sessions, you are poorer than the poorest, in lack of all that makes life 

 worth living. It is allotted to man to live but once, and then to die — a 

 brief existence, a few greetings, and farewells, and we go hence and forever. 

 Make an effort to have a decent home, let it be small, if necessary, but 

 convenient. 



Utilize the water that runs to waste on your land to beautify your 

 grounds, and give the stock a place to drink. I have seen on warm sum- 

 mer days, on more than one " ranch," the cattle standing round, with lolling 

 tongues, and staring eyes, with no available watering-place within reach of 

 their thirsty lips, while within inclosures, a few rods away, water ran to 

 waste with no benefit but as a hog wallow. Accumulate less territory, and 



