Summary

Chapter 25. Spring comes to California. Scientists work to make the crops and fruits grow healthy and in great numbers. Fruit swells on their limbs and it is sweet. But the owners calculate, and the prices are low so they cannot pay men to pick their fruit and still make any profit on it. So they let the grapes and the peaches and prunes and plums fall to the ground and rot. The little farmers make no money and slip into debt; only the giant owners can survive. They destroy their crops to keep up the price. The starving migrants gather to collect the rotting fruit, but the owners cannot allow that so they pour kerosene over the fruit. The migrants go hungry, and a great anger begins to ripen.

Chapter 26. A month has passed, and the Joads have not found any work. Ma insists they...