Before this catastrophe came about, however, we had been exceedingly busy visiting innumerable ranches and examining possible and impossible land that was waiting to be made into ranches. We saw most of the well-known "settled-up" parts, and many lovely valleys and foothills which were said to be the coming fruit districts of the near future.
It takes some years for English eyes to get accustomed to the bareness of the hills of California, or to find out the true beauty of these dried-up looking slopes. Once the love for them begins, however, it grows at a great pace, and one discovers constantly fresh wonder and charm in them. Surely no other hills have the gift of holding the splendid sunset colours with such transfiguring power. Even the Alps cannot outrival them in this. But at first it is their uncompromising bareness, dryness and barrenness which hurts one's sensitiveness. We were also disagreeably impressed by the tracts of waste ground, lying promiscuously among the more finished streets, and all scattered over with empty tins and other rubbish, giving a decided effect of disorder and unkemptness, even though the neighbouring houses might be pretty and have dainty gardens. Some of the older established fruit districts were very prosperous looking, and had quite a busy social life. But our minds were quite made up, that of what the land had to offer, we would, without hesitation, choose a real country life, free and untrammelled, in one of the less settled neighbourhoods.
However we conscientiously went to see all the most promising parts, and in this way we learnt a great deal. We found that in this part of Southern California the heat during the summer months was so very great, that all who had the means to do so, left these inland valleys and came every summer to the coast for three or four months, leaving a reliable man in charge, and also going back and forward several times to see that everything was being well cared for. To many people this would be no drawback, but only a pleasant change. We did not wish, however, to settle in any place where we should be absolutely compelled to leave home for so long every year.
Another disadvantage of buying a ranch in one of these established parts is the very high price demanded for all such land. However, it is an open question whether it really costs more in the end to buy a ready-planted and bearing ranch at the very high figure generally quoted.
If you buy in a less settled neighbourhood the rough untouched land at a tenth of the price—which would be about the cost of good land with water—there is the hard work of clearing and grading, laying out, planting and piping it. Then the long waiting before the trees can bring in any income, and when household and ranch expenses have to be met, must be counted as so much more money invested. It is just here that so many sad failures occur.
There has been so much exaggeration about the wonders of California, that those who have caught from such one-sided accounts the fever of longing for the sunshine and free life, do not make allowance for this necessarily long pause before any income is possible from a ranch. Thus it comes to pass that so many ranches are mortgaged; and when a ranch is mortgaged, it is a hopeless business for the poor rancher who has worked so hard at his unaccustomed labour.
It has been said that small fruit—berries of different kinds—may be grown meanwhile, and that the profits from these will help out the expenses until the ranch trees bear. If you are made of cast iron, you may possibly be able to give the necessary work to your ranch, and at the same time cultivate small fruit; but if you come from the ordinary comfortable middle-class at home, you cannot have the strength or resistance to stand this additional toil.
I believe there is a vague but sanguine idea among those at home, bitten by the Californian fever, that you have only to plant trees or vegetables and then sit down comfortably in the sunshine and wait for them to grow, condescending eventually to put aside your book and your pipe for a little while, and gather in all the rich harvest which this wonderful climate has produced for you. This is not so. Ranching is really hard work, and moreover the greatest strain of the life to men coming from a different climate, is that all this unaccustomed labour has to be done in the hot glare of unbroken sunshine.
(To be continued.)