24 THE LUKE OF THE LAND 



his position, attracted by the allurements of the orchard 

 business, to cast his fortunes two thousand miles away 

 from his former home in the new land of Eldorado. He 

 says: 



If I should give my experiences year by year I might seem 

 to be a " knocker." No one likes to appear in that light. 

 Many have done better than I, and, also, some have fared 

 worse. 



It was very difficult for me to decide to buy because of high 

 prices of land. I held off for some two months and looked the 

 country over tolerably thoroughly and talked to all I met. I 

 believe that if we had had as few disastrous years as old timers 

 all declared had visited here within the twenty years before 

 our coming, we should have made good, even at prices then 

 prevailing. We bought twenty acres, paying approximately 

 $800 an acre for the portion, 7^ acres, in bearing apple trees, 

 and $400 an acre for the 12^2 acres which was partly set with 

 young trees and in alfalfa and partly in prune trees. 



We got the crop on the trees the summer we bought, that is, 

 the summer of 1905. It was a good crop and brought a fair 

 price. Since then we have had only two years as good. There 

 have been frosts and freezes in the spring, or wind and hail 

 in summer, or snow and hail and freezing weather in the fall 

 before we got the crop harvested. 



In 1910 we sold the bearing apple orchard, 7^2 acres, for 

 $6500, and paid off our notes and had the 12^2 acres clear. 

 In 1909 we had a good peach year. Our orchard netted us 

 about $150 an acre that season. In the other years it has not 

 paid expenses. In the fall of 1912 I pulled up one acre of 

 peach trees and sowed the ground with alfalfa. I expect to 

 pull out one acre more this fall. That will leave me two acres 

 of peach trees. 



The most disastrous year this valley ever saw was 1912. We 

 had bumper crops of both peaches and apples. But the sum- 

 mer was cool and showery and the peaches were late. I had 

 just begun picking when there came a snow storm. The snow 

 lay on the peaches for a day. The trees were already break- 

 ing with fruit. The additional weight broke many limbs, and 

 some trees were ruined. The snow was followed by frosts, 



