and often on a scale of personal expenses out of all proportion to the probable results.  In the sixties, when the gold-fever began to subside, it was found that the despised “cow counties” would bear marvelous crops of wheat.  At once wheat-raising was undertaken on a grand scale.  Farms of five thousand to fifty thousand acres were established on the old Spanish grants in the valleys of the Coast Range and in the interior, and for a time wheat-raising on a grand scale took its place along with the more conventional forms of gambling, with the disadvantage that small holders were excluded, and the region occupied was not filled up by homes.

The working out of most of the placer mines and the advent of quartz-crushing with elaborate machinery have changed gold-mining from speculation to regular business, to the great advantage of the state.  In the same manner the development of irrigation is changing the character of farming in many parts of California.  In the early days fruit-raising was of the nature of speculation, but the spread of irrigation has brought it into more wholesome relations.  To irrigate a tract of land is to make its product certain; but at the same time irrigation demands expenditure of money, and the building of a home necessarily follows.  Irrigation thus tends to break up the vast farms into small holdings which become permanent homes.

On land well chosen, carefully planted and thriftily managed, an orchard of prunes or of oranges, of almonds or apricots, should reward its possessor with a comfortable living, besides occasionally a generous profit thrown in.  But too often men have not been content with the usual return, and have planted trees with a view only to the unearned profits.  To make an honest living from the sale of oranges or prunes or figs or raisins is quite another thing from acquiring sudden wealth.  When a man without experience in fruit-raising or in general economy comes to California, buys land on borrowed capital, plants it without discrimination, and spends his profits in advance, there can be but one result.  The laws of economics are inexorable even in California.  One of the curses of the state is the “fool fruit-grower,” with neither knowledge nor conscience in the management of his business.  Thousands of trees have been planted on ground unsuitable for the purpose, and thousands of trees which ought to have done well have died through his neglect.  Through his agency frozen oranges were once sent to Eastern markets under his neighbor’s brands, and most needlessly his varied follies for a time injured the reputation of the best of fruit.