THE CALIFORNIA FKdT PLXCIIAXGE. 405 



other work, sell stock to the amount of, at least, $1,200 or 

 $1,500 per month, twenty-five per cent paid in, which would 

 pay the current expenses, leaving the balance as a gradually 

 increasing fund to be called in later, if needed as working 

 capital. The manager said that he expected much more, but 

 so much he felt sure of, and the directors relied on his judg- 

 ment. Never was a man more mistaken. The Santa Clara 

 A'alley is a thickly populated and homogeneous community, 

 and while, as stated in describing the Santa Clara Exchange, 

 it was hard to raise money there, towards the close of the 

 canvass, the persistent work of six months in one neighbor- 

 hood began to tell. All growers came to know about the 

 county Exchange, and to take interest in it, as a thing really 

 likely to materialize in brick and mortar before their eyes, 

 and to talk of it with their neighbors, as something real and 

 not a dream, so that, towards the last, less time was occupied 

 in converting individuals. In securing funds, however, for 

 the state Exchange, but little time could be devoted to any 

 neighborhood; and in spite of the wide publicity supposed to 

 have been given to the plans, it was always a new thing, to be 

 fully explained from the ver}^ beginning to each individual, 

 usually requiring interviews of several hours, nearly killing 

 both parties thereto ; and when it came to reducing the infi- 

 nite weariness of so much talk to the concrete financial result 

 of a stock subscription, with an immediate casli payment 

 thereon, it was like drawing a tight cork from a wine bottle. 

 It was usually the case that the strongest talkers for cooperation 

 were the hardest to get money from. Besides, the money in 

 the Santa Clara case was at least to go into tangible property, 

 which the stockholders could use, while that sought for the 

 state Exchange was avowedly to be used in experiment, and 

 might be lost. The manager, in his estimates, had allowed 

 for the different circumstances, and assigned twenty-five per 

 cent of the proposed capital stock for the expenses of organiz- 

 ing, as against seven and one-half per cent actually expended 

 in the Santa Clara organization, but he did not allow enough. 

 There were other disappointments; the "representative grow- 

 ers" of the special convention whose supposed enthusiasm had 



