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.

The great body of immigrants to California have been sound and earnest,
fit citizens of the young state, but this is rarely true of seekers of
the unearned increment. No one is more greedy for money than the man who
can never get much and cannot keep the little he has. Rumors of golden
chances have brought in a steady stream of incompetents from all regions
and from all strata of social life. From the common tramp to the
inventor of "perpetual motions" in mechanics or in social science, is a
long step in the moral scale, but both are alike in their eagerness to
escape from the "competitive social order" of the East, in which their
abilities found no recognition. Whoever has deservedly failed in the
older states is sure at least once in his life to think of redeeming his
fortunes in California. Once on the Pacific slope the difficulties in
the way of his return seem insurmountable. The dread of the winter's
cold is in most cases a sufficient reason for never going back. Thus San
Francisco, by force of circumstances, has become the hopper into which
fall incompetents from all the world, and from which few escape. The
city contains more than four hundred thousand people. Of these, a vast
number, thirty thousand to fifty thousand, it may be, have no real