Intensive Farming in California 
small farm or in any industry in this State a man 
must apply himself to the business at hand. Many 
a man who has not been able to pay down more 
than one-fourth of the price of his small farm, 
has achieved entire success with diversified farm¬ 
ing and has paid for the place within two or three 
years from the proceeds. Many instances might 
he cited of such success in California. In fact 
there is scarcely a locality in the State where they 
may not be found. Hundreds of men in Cali¬ 
fornia, to-day are well-to-do who came here with 
just about enough to pay part of the purchase 
price of their places and get the improvements 
and stock. These men devoted themselves to 
diversified intensive farming and are now con¬ 
sidered among the substantial citizens of the 
State. There are entirely too many of these 
instances to attempt to enumerate them. One in¬ 
stance will be a fair sample of them all. A pro¬ 
spective farmer bought twenty acres of land at 
^100 an acre, paying one-fourth cash and taking 
the rest on easy payments. His outlay at the 
start was: 
Improvements. $2,000 
Twenty acres. 500 
Horses, wagon, harness, farm utensils, 
. 350. 
Six cows. 240“^ 
Six young pigs. 30 
Chickens. 20 
Incidentals. no 
Total. ^3.250 
This man divided his land, laying out eight 
acres to vineyard, two acres to orchard and garden 
and ten acres to alfalfa. Five acres of the vine¬ 
yard were devoted to Tokay grapes and three 
acres to seedless Thompsons, for raisins, and 
while these vines were reaching maturity the six 
cows, together with the pigs and their progeny 
and the hens, supported the family. 
But many a man desires to go into 
Success On r • ii i • i i 
Small Tracts farming on a small scale who has 
• not the amount specified in the 
above example. He cannot make the outlay at 
the start. Such a man need not be deterred from 
entering upon the business in California, for 
there are numerous instances where men have 
succeeded on much smaller tracts than twenty 
acres, and with much less of a start than the 
one mentioned above. In the Sacramento valley 
Samuel Cleek and his wife have made a living 
from a one-acre patch of ground, since 1877. 
When Cleek went there all the country was given 
over to the raising of wheat and Cleek had meagre 
capital. He obtained an acre in a corner of a big 
wheat field, near a newly plotted town site. He 
built a little cabin of one room and put up a wind¬ 
mill, then started to raise vegetables and poultry. 
He had great faith in the future development of 
the country, and as time went by he planted 
berries and fruits in many varieties. Cleek culti¬ 
vated his one acre to its fullest extent on the in¬ 
tensive and diversified plan. Every foot on the 
acre farm was utilized, as will be seen by the fol¬ 
lowing inventory of what the place contains: 
Cottage and porches, 30 by 30 feet; barn and 
corral space, including chicken-houses, 75 by 75 
feet; two windmill towers, 16 by 16 feet each; 
garden, 46 by 94 feet; blackberries, 16 by 90 feet; 
strawberries, 60 by 90 feet; citrus nursery, 90 by 
98 feet (in this there are usually 400 budded orange 
trees); a row of dewberries along the fence, 100 
by 2 feet; 4 apricot trees, 2 oak trees, 3 peach 
trees, 6 fig trees, ten locust trees, 7 eucalyptus 
trees, 30 assorted roses, 20 assorted geraniums, 
12 lemon trees, seven years old; a lime tree from 
which were sold within one year 160 dozen limes, 
4 bearing breadfruit trees, 8 bearing orange trees, 
5 pomegranate trees, 6 beds of violets about 
feet each, i patch bamboo, bed callas, 4 prune 
trees, 6 cypress trees, 16 stands of bees, 4 huge 
grape vines, i bed sage, i seed bed, besides honey¬ 
suckles and many rare shrubs. On this one acre 
Cleek and his wife lived and laid by some money. 
' When it is remembered that land which is 
worth from $1,000 to $2,000 an acre is being 
cultivated and gives good interest on that amount 
of money, it will be seen that small acreages can 
be utilized to great advantage if properly cared 
for. 
But it must be remembered that 
niore depends upon the man than 
upon the ground. California is not 
a lazy man’s country. The instances of good 
results enumerated above would not have been 
possible had not the man worked intelligently, 
persistently, and to the best advantage all the time. 
There are frequent instances in California where a 
man has been fortunate enough to acquire a piece 
of ground with improvements at a cost which 
made it a bargain, because the original owner of 
the place failed in the requisites which could have 
made the place a success. The new owner has 
started with a good place and has made a living 
and laid by a good sum each year on the same 
place where the other man ran into debt. An 
instance of this sort recently occurred in one of 
the foothill valleys. A man purchased forty acres 
of land lying partly on the hill and partly on bot¬ 
tom. A stream ran through the bottom land, and 
on the hill were two fine springs. He built a house 
of nine rooms at the foot of the hill, piped and 
plumbed, with water from one of the springs. 
The outbuildings were good and substantial, and 
the place was put in good order, the impiove- 
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