202 RURAL CALIFORNIA 



plant on land somewhat alkaline was demonstrated. 

 On the data collected from such earlier undertakings 

 and from his own researches into the character of 

 the soils and climatic conditions and from observa- 

 tion of many experimental patches then to be seen 

 (for cotton had never ceased to be a favorite plant 

 with experimenters),, the late E. W. Hilgard included 

 California among the "cotton states" which he mi- 

 nutely described in his monograph on cotton-growing 

 in the United States,, a part of the United States 

 census of 1880. It was nearly a third of a century 

 later before cotton production became established 

 in the Imperial Valley and subsequently extended 

 by the stimulus of war needs to other interior dis- 

 tricts of the State. 



During this hiatus, however, experiments and 

 exhortations were not wholly absent. The chief dif- 

 ficulty seemed to be to secure a labor supply to pick 

 cotton at a cost which would leave a profit to the 

 grower. The basis of picking with Chinese labor, on 

 which growers were building previous to 1879, disap- 

 peared with the adoption of the exclusion act. Kern 

 County growers, some years later, tried the experi- 

 ment of introducing a train load of southern negroes 

 but they ran away soon after arrival, seeking town 

 jobs. It was subsequently pointed out that the 

 experiment had failed because the negroes had been 

 gathered from southern towns and not brought from 

 plantations. 



During this time also there was a continuance of 

 exhortation because the California Cotton Mills 



