132 RURAL CALIFORNIA 



important part in the development of the State, but 

 has shaped it to its own needs and uses. No indus- 

 try has ever peopled the harbor of San Francisco 

 with ships as did the wheat business and no trans- 

 portation gambler has ever made and lost so much 

 money in any craft as in ships for wheat. Similarly, 

 no farm product ever gathered land into such ducal 

 areas or moved over it such capacious machinery of 

 production or broke up so many men by its lure into 

 speculative production or trade as has wheat. It 

 hastily subdued a vast area of wild lands which were 

 afterwards largely turned to more productive uses 

 to fruit planting and alfalfa-growing, the latter the 

 basis for large dairy production and for the chief 

 part of the progress made in improved live-stock 

 enterprises, for the most notable achievements with 

 better horses,, cattle, sheep and swine have been se- 

 cured on lands first farmed for export wheat. Wheat- 

 growing also threw much land into good hands and 

 the wheat trade furnished wealth for city building. 

 Its effect on the development of good citizenship was 

 also notable. Although it wrecked some families by 

 the spirit of gambling and allied dissipation which 

 it engendered, it stimulated a broader view of farm- 

 ing in others and many of the best of the second gen- 

 eration farmers, mentally well equipped and ade- 

 quately capitalized, are the sons of the old wheat- 

 growers of four or five decades ago. 



Although California wheat-growers never attained 

 fully capable and continuous organization, they have 

 from time to time undertaken cooperative enterprise 



