PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-SIXTH FRUIT-GROWERS' CONVENTION. 



85 



EANOH LIFE IN OALIFOENIA. 



By MRS. EMMA FOX, of Lemoore. 



"I look away; no green thing gladdens 

 My weary eye — no flower, no tree — 

 Naught save the earth the sagebrush saddens, 

 The scorched gray earth, that sickens me." 



How vividly these lines recall primitive ranch life in California? I 

 have in mind the experiences of a family who left the cultivated East 

 to follow a dream of unprecedented good fortune, fabulous wealth, and 

 abiding health, to the idealized Golden State. Came as thousands of 

 others, with the one idea to reap speedily the magnificent harvests, 

 appropriate the nuggets that were no doubt scattered broadcast, only 

 waiting for New England thrift to gather them in, then return, to enjoy 

 in affluence advantages left behind. 



The promised land was reached in the glorious springtime, which 

 ^' found a land of beauty, and left a paradise." Nature's entrancing 

 panorama, the coloring furnished by wild flowers and waving grasses, 

 was at its best. The land that, magician-like, was to furnish the 

 princely fortune, was purchased from the Government, free from the 

 desecration of polluting hands. The intoxication of the ideal surround- 

 ings would have made the absence of neighbors not noticed, but the 

 deluding influence of the mirage made the prohibitive distance a lie. 

 The broad, level plain, all ready for the plow, stood in such alluring 

 contrast to the limited, timber-encumbered tracts of the East, that 

 called for so much time and labor before a crop could be thought of, 

 that the work was entered into with courage and enthusiasm. The 

 venture proved the " castle in the air," the ^' love that never runs 

 smooth." The crop was put in with true Eastern skill and care; it 

 burst forth in blossom in a most satisfactory way; but the castle fell in 

 a single night. One morning a tremendous herd was discoverd brows- 

 ing on the well-tilled acres; the result of the labor of months had been 

 swept away in a breath. 



The battle then began between agriculturists bending every effort to 

 make the most of the country, and the factor with a barrel of money to 

 control legislation in its own interest, and the burden of fence-building 

 was confronted. 



As calamities never come singly, another enemy soon came to the 

 front with its destroying qualities. The remnant of the crop, rescued 

 by eternal vigilance from the invading '^herd," soon succtimbed to the 

 mericiless rays of the scorching sun. The scenes of bewitching beauty 

 of a few months ago had given place to a brown and arid waste. 

 Neighbors who, under the deceptive atmosphere of spring, could be seen 

 in their own dooryards, now in the glare of the midsummer sun had so 



