CHAPTER 11. 



CONDITIONS LEADING TO THEIR ORGANIZATION. 



THE history of the settlement and development of Cali- 

 fornia is a marvel. There has been nothing like it in 

 the world's history. The circumstances of its settlement 

 led to its colonization by a people of wonderful vitality; the 

 charm of its climate, the fertility of its soil, the character- 

 istics of its topography, its flavor of old buccaneering legend, 

 culminating in the wonderful romance of the annexation and 

 gold-seeking epoch, combined to insure it such an amount of 

 gratuitous and enthusiastic advertising as no country and no 

 community ever before received. The romance of the gold 

 era was followed by the romance of the wheat era, with its 

 great farms, whose furrows were miles long, in following which 

 the plowman starting in the morning returned to his starting- 

 place only in time for the noon-day meal, and whose soil, 

 fabled to be of inexhaustible fertility, yielded stores beyond 

 measure to the granaries of the world; this, in turn, was 

 followed by the fruit idyl, far more attractive than the wheat 

 industry, and, for a time, surrounding California, with a halo 

 of rural blessedness which was a lure to the world. What- 

 ever has been done in California has been great of its kind. 



The hold which the fruit industries of California gained 

 upon the imagination of the world was astonishing. The 

 frost-pinched denizen of colder climes pictured to himself the 

 fortunate orchardist of California as one whose happy days 

 were passed in shady nooks, wherefrom he idly watched the 

 gradual ripening of golden fruit in sun-kissed orchards, or 

 recruited waning strength in gentle exercise among the laden 

 boughs, whose luscious burden should presently supply his 

 every want. 



That was the picture. As a matter of fact, fruit-growing in 

 California is not only one of the most risky of industries, but is 



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