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TWENTY-NINTH FRUIT-GROWERS' CONVENTION. 



These cherished ones of ours, whom we have loved, and cared for so 

 tenderly, to whom we gave only of the best while they lived, when 

 Death has gone away with the spirit, and our last care is to deposit in 

 the earth the empty shell, empty indeed, yet so unspeakably dear, if it 

 were in our power would we not seek for them a spot, the loveliest there 

 is, surround it with flowers of the rarest hue, and ask only that gentle 

 winds visit it, that the sun beat not too fervently, that the softest rains 

 fall upon the earth cover? Is it not this that we all crave for them? 

 And what is their portion and ours, in this great sun-kissed valley? 



RANCH LABOR— FIELD AND HOUSE. 



By MRS. G. W. AKIN, of Oleaxder. 

 (Read by Miss Nellie Boyd.) 



MISS BOYD. The paper is by Mrs. G. W. Akin. I am always 

 sorry for the writer when a paper has to be read by some one else. The 

 reader may get the words, but very rarely can one imbibe the spirit 

 which gives color and life to the paper. 



Last year my paper read before this meeting brought forth a spirited 

 argument for and against the importation of Chinese labor. The news- 

 papers took it up, and some went so far as to suggest turning our 

 beautiful vineyards and orchards into hog ranches sooner than be 

 defiled by the " heathen Chinee," and tried to show the danger of the 

 amalgamation of races. The editor evidently took a social view of the 

 matter. It was the practical side to which I referred, not the social, 

 for I do not fear the mixing of the races, because girls are rather par- 

 ticular. 



The Chinese Exclusion Act I liken to the proverb, " Straining at a 

 gnat and swallowing a camel." I have changed it to "swallowing 

 an elephant," as a camel is too small. It has closed our Western 

 ports to a class of men who were single; took no part in politics, con- 

 sequently hatched no plots against our government; were quiet and 

 peaceful at work, lived to themselves, and worked well for us. Now, 

 these are the people who are shut out. 



At the same time our Eastern ports are thrown wide open to the scum 

 of Europe. The danger of this wholesale immigration is plainly shown 

 by Frank P. Sargent, the Commissioner-General of Immigration. In 

 his report he says: "An influx of aliens such as the last twelve months 

 have witnessed constitutes a general peril to national interests. The 

 year ended June 30, 1903, was a record-breaking one in the history of 

 immigration. Nine hundred and twenty-one thousand aliens applied 

 for admission at our ports, and only 8,769 of them were rejected. 

 Certainly on this showing some basis can be found for the suggestion 

 that the United States is being deluged with a horde of Italian push- 



