THE CHANCE FOR LABORERS AND SMALL FARMERS.
It would seem, then, that capital is necessary for successful
agriculture or horticulture in Southern California. But where is it not
needed? In New England? In Kansas, where land which was given to actual
settlers is covered with mortgages for money absolutely necessary to
develop it? But passing this by, what is the chance in Southern
California for laborers and for mechanics? Let us understand the
situation. In California there is no exception to the rule that
continual labor, thrift, and foresight are essential to the getting of a
good living or the gaining of a competence. No doubt speculation will
spring up again. It is inevitable with the present enormous and yearly
increasing yield of fruits, the better intelligence in vine culture,
wine-making, and raisin-curing, the growth of marketable oranges,
lemons, etc., and the consequent rise in the value of land. Doubtless
fortunes will be made by enterprising companies who secure large areas
of unimproved land at low prices, bring water on them, and then sell in
small lots. But this will come to an end. The tendency is to subdivide
the land into small holdings--into farms and gardens of ten and twenty
acres. The great ranches are sure to be broken up. With the resulting
settlement by industrious people the cities will again experience
"booms;" but these are not peculiar to California. In my mind I see the
time when this region (because it will pay better proportionally to
cultivate a small area) will be one of small farms, of neat cottages, of
industrious homes. The owner is pretty certain to prosper--that is, to
get a good living (which is independence), and lay aside a little
yearly--if the work is done by himself and his family. And the
peculiarity of the situation is that the farm or garden, whichever it is
called, will give agreeable and most healthful occupation to all the
boys and girls in the family all the days in the year that can be spared
from the school. Aside from the ploughing, the labor is light. Pruning,
grafting, budding, the picking of the grapes, the gathering of the fruit
from the trees, the sorting, packing, and canning, are labor for light
and deft hands, and labor distributed through the year. The harvest, of
one sort and another, is almost continuous, so that young girls and boys
can have, in well-settled districts, pretty steady employment--a long
season in establishments packing oranges; at another time, in canning
fruits; at another, in packing raisins.
It goes without saying that in the industries now developed, and in
others as important which are in their infancy (for instance, the
culture of the olive for oil and as an article of food; the growth and
curing of figs; the gathering of almonds, English walnuts, etc.), the
labor of the owners of the land and their families will not suffice.
There must be as large a proportion of day-laborers as there are in
other regions where such products are grown. Chinese labor at certain
seasons has been a necessity. Under the present policy of California
this must diminish, and its place be taken by some other. The pay for
this labor has always been good. It is certain to be more and more in
demand. Whether the pay will ever approach near to the European standard
is a question, but it is a fair presumption that the exceptional profit
of the land, owing to its productiveness, will for a long time keep
wages up.
During the "boom" period all wages were high, those of skilled mechanics
especially, owing to the great amount of building on speculation. The
ordinary laborer on a ranch had $30 a month and board and lodging;
laborers of a higher grade, $2 to $2 50 a day; skilled masons, $6;
carpenters, from $3 50 to $5; plasterers, $4 to $5; house-servants, from
$23 to $33 a month. Since the "boom," wages of skilled mechanics have
declined at least 25 per cent., and there has been less demand for labor
generally, except in connection with fruit raising and harvesting. It
would be unwise for laborers to go to California on an uncertainty, but
it can be said of that country with more confidence than of any other
section that its peculiar industries, now daily increasing, will absorb
an increasing amount of day labor, and later on it will remunerate
skilled artisan labor.
In deciding whether Southern California would be an agreeable place of
residence there are other things to be considered besides the
productiveness of the soil, the variety of products, the ease of
out-door labor distributed through the year, the certainty of returns
for intelligent investment with labor, the equability of summer and
winter, and the adaptation to personal health. There are always
disadvantages attending the development of a new country and the
evolution of a new society. It is not a small thing, and may be one of
daily discontent, the change from a landscape clad with verdure, the
riotous and irrepressible growth of a rainy region, to a land that the
greater part of the year is green only where it is artificially watered,
where all the hills and unwatered plains are brown and sere, where the
foliage is coated with dust, and where driving anywhere outside the
sprinkled avenues of a town is to be enveloped in a cloud of powdered
earth. This discomfort must be weighed against the commercial advantages
of a land of irrigation.
[Illustration: GARDEN SCENE, SANTA ANA.]
What are the chances for a family of very moderate means to obtain a
foothold and thrive by farming in Southern California? I cannot answer
this better than by giving substantially the experience of one family,
and by saying that this has been paralleled, with change of details, by
many others. Of course, in a highly developed settlement, where the land
is mostly cultivated, and its actual yearly produce makes its price very
high, it is not easy to get a foothold. But there are many regions--say
in Orange County, and certainly in San Diego--where land can be had at a
moderate price and on easy terms of payment. Indeed, there are few
places, as I have said, where an industrious family would not find
welcome and cordial help in establishing itself. And it must be
remembered that there are many communities where life is very simple,
and the great expense of keeping up an appearance attending life
elsewhere need not be reckoned.
A few years ago a professional man in a New England city, who was in
delicate health, with his wife and five boys, all under sixteen, and one
too young to be of any service, moved to San Diego. He had in money a
small sum, less than a thousand dollars. He had no experience in farming
or horticulture, and his health would not have permitted him to do much
field work in our climate. Fortunately he found in the fertile El Cajon
Valley, fifteen miles from San Diego, a farmer and fruit-grower, who had
upon his place a small unoccupied house. Into that house he moved,
furnishing it very simply with furniture bought in San Diego, and hired
his services to the landlord. The work required was comparatively easy,
in the orchard and vineyards, and consisted largely in superintending
other laborers. The pay was about enough to support his family without
encroaching on his little capital. Very soon, however, he made an
arrangement to buy the small house and tract of some twenty acres on
which he lived, on time, perhaps making a partial payment. He began at
once to put out an orange orchard and plant a vineyard; this he
accomplished with the assistance of his boys, who did practically most
of the work after the first planting, leaving him a chance to give most
of his days to his employer. The orchard and vineyard work is so light
that a smart, intelligent boy is almost as valuable a worker in the
field as a man. The wife, meantime, kept the house and did its work.
House-keeping was comparatively easy; little fuel was required except
for cooking; the question of clothes was a minor one. In that climate
wants for a fairly comfortable existence are fewer than with us. From
the first, almost, vegetables, raised upon the ground while the vines
and oranges were growing, contributed largely to the support of the
family. The out-door life and freedom from worry insured better health,
and the diet of fruit and vegetables, suitable to the climate, reduced
the cost of living to a minimum. As soon as the orchard and the vineyard
began to produce fruit, the owner was enabled to quit working for his
neighbor, and give all his time to the development of his own place. He
increased his planting; he added to his house; he bought a piece of land
adjoining which had a grove of eucalyptus, which would supply him with
fuel. At first the society circle was small, and there was no school;
but the incoming of families had increased the number of children, so
that an excellent public school was established. When I saw him he was
living in conditions of comfortable industry; his land had trebled in
value; the pair of horses which he drove he had bought cheap, for they
were Eastern horses; but the climate had brought them up, so that the
team was a serviceable one in good condition. The story is not one of
brilliant success, but to me it is much more hopeful for the country
than the other tales I heard of sudden wealth or lucky speculation. It
is the founding in an unambitious way of a comfortable home. The boys of
the family will branch out, get fields, orchards, vineyards of their
own, and add to the solid producing industry of the country. This
orderly, contented industry, increasing its gains day by day, little by
little, is the life and hope of any State.