STEEP TRAILS 



to gather sufficient gold moss to purchase from 

 ten to forty acres of land. They are perfectly 

 hilarious in their newly found life, work like 

 ants in a sunny noonday, and, looking far 

 into the future, hopefully count their orange 

 chicks ten years or more before they are 

 hatched; supporting themselves in the mean- 

 time on the produce of a few acres of alfalfa, 

 together with garden vegetables and the quick- 

 growing fruits, such as figs, grapes, apples, etc., 

 the whole reinforced by the remaining dollars 

 of their land purchase money. There is nothing 

 more remarkable in the character of the colony 

 than the hterary and scientific taste displayed. 

 The conversation of most I have met here is sea- 

 soned with a smack of mental ozone, Attic salt, 

 which struck me as being rare among the tillers 

 of California soil. People of taste and money 

 in search of a home would do well to prospect 

 the resources of this aristocratic little colony. 

 If we look now at these southern valleys in 

 general, it will appear at once that with all 

 their advantages they lie beyond the reach of 

 poor settlers, not only on account of the high 

 price of irrigable land — one hundred dollars 

 per acre and upwards — but because of the 

 scarcity of labor. A settler with three or four 

 thousand dollars would be penniless after 

 paying for twenty acres of orange land and 



142 



