86 PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-SIXTH FRUIT-GROWERS' CONVENTION. 



retreated that the houses themselves were hardly visible, and the cool 

 courtesy that pronounced the doubtful welcome to their grazing land, 

 not felt under the promise of prosperity, cut now like a two-edged 

 sword. 



The case was thoroughly disheartening; the abandonment of it all 

 and a return home was the impulse; but where was home? The one time 

 home had been given up for the new venture; there was no money to 

 reinstate it, and too much pride to return to the old stamping ground 

 to begin anew. 



Fellow men are none too prone to show the bright side to the unfor- 

 tunate, so they were greeted on every hand with the assurance, " It is 

 ever thus; sooner or later, if you cast your lot in California, you will 

 come to bedrock." 



These apparently hopeless conditions, as is often the case, proved 

 blessings in disguise. The very poverty, poetically called bedrock, and 

 the innate pride that resisted despair were the salvation of the State* 

 Had it been left to the resources of the indolent element found here, its 

 possibilities would never have been known. 



This famil)^ was only a type of the many who followed. The energy 

 born of the necessities of the case, guided by Yankee pluck and gump- 

 tion, blazed the way to success, and, when supplemented by the lavish 

 gifts with which nature has supplied this part of the country, that suc- 

 cess was made doubly sure. It was not reached at a bound nor by 

 rose-strewn paths. It was a world of experiment; everything had to be 

 learned; new methods had to be employed; but its development and 

 growth were truly typical, for mistakes were made only to be corrected, 

 obstacles met only to be overcome. One of the most stubborn of these 

 was the entire lack of the home-making spirit. Among early settlers 

 the feeling prevailed that California was the place to make money, but 

 not to spend it. Because a family would not freeze in a shanty, a 

 shanty was considered good enough; the artistic was lost sight of in 

 the great race for wealth. As a result, rural districts were most unin- 

 viting. It was only when home-loving settlers found that they must stay, 

 and had done work enough for the adopted country to feel it was their 

 own, and its climatic smiles had won their love, that such barriers were 

 beaten down and the fashion of good homes established. And now the 

 ranch homes of California are no longer isolated or unattractive — "the 

 wind has been tempered to the shorn lamb." The widespread orchard 

 and vineyard and tremendous acreage of pasture lands have absorbed 

 and mellowed the heat of the sun, and made the blighting sandstorm a 

 thing of the past. 



Ranch interests have kept pace with the progressive spirit that per- 

 vades all the undertakings of the State. The petty details that have 

 characterized other new countries, making life a grind, keeping each 



