COUNTRY LIFE IN THE WEST 37 



in disastrous competition, the orange-growers, the raisin-growers, 

 the bee-keepers, and other classes of farmers, have formed 

 unions and associations which control the whole matter of pack- 

 ing, shipping, and selling the farmers' products. These as- 

 sociations further curtail the rights of the individual, hindering 

 him, for instance, from shipping poor fruit, or poorly packed 

 fruit, lest it injure the reputation of the community in the 

 Eastern markets; and if there are k>sses, each man must stand 

 his share. So powerful, indeed, are these associations that they 

 can even venture to fight the railroad companies in the matter of 

 freight rates, as they have done more than once in California. 

 Farming in the East is a sort of guerilla warfare, every man for 

 himself; in the arid West, it is a highly organized and disci- 

 plined struggle. 



It is interesting to speculate as to the effect which these new 

 conditions of life will have on the American character. Irri- 

 gation requires a greater degree of skill than ordinary agricul- 

 ture; it is more a matter of exact science, less of chance. The 

 Easterner sows his crops and depends on the will of Heaven for 

 his rain ; the Westerner goes out to his head-gate and lets in the 

 rain, in just such amounts and at just such times as he pleases. 

 He knows how much water he is entitled to, and its distribution 

 is a simple matter of calculation. But he must be a careful 

 student of his crops; he cannot water his strawberries and his 

 sugar-beets at the same time and in the same amount, for the 

 strawberries are always thirsty, while the beets require only a 

 few waterings in the season. He must also know his own peculiar 

 climate, for fields require much more water in the desert air of 

 Arizona than in the moister climate of southern California, and 

 he must have a care that the water leaves no alkali in his soil. 

 In other words, he must be an intelligent, reading, scientific 

 farmer if he would outwit the desert and compete with the 

 energy of his neighbors. Men in the irrigated lands live closer 

 together than in the East, and farms are smaller. Some valleys, 

 indeed, seem like villages, each resident of which lives in the 

 midst of handsome grounds; whole districts in southern Cali- 

 fornia are veritable parks for beauty. This brings neighbors 

 closer together, breaks up the deadly isolation of the Middle 

 States farmers, enables a community to have better schools, 



