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Because, as is well known, no State in the country has suffered more from the rapacity of land speculators than California. From the very beginning it has been a wild cry of caveat emptor, and let the devil take the hindmost. will occur, inevitably, with the opening up of fat new lands. But in California the settler, unless he was a genius for business, usually started in his young life by getting sandbagged. The common method of settling a piece of land was to invite everybody to come and farm and get rich, to promise everything and perform nothing. To leave a settler as flat on his back as an inverted sea turtle was considered in land-speculative circles a rich joke.

Now, we all know that when a sucker is tolled onto a piece of land on which he is destined to go broke it isn't only the sucker who suffers. Everybody in the State where the sucker draws his last agricultural breath has to pay for the mistake. California has paid heavily for every simoleon torn away from the guileless settlers.

It was to put real settlers on real lands properly prepared for agriculture, with a real chance to stand the gaff till fruition came, that the Land Settlement Board of California was created. The notion of the board was to bite off only as much as it could chew. Or, so to speak, to vaccinate a small crew and then wait a bit to see if the virus took.

About a year and a half ago The Country Gentleman printed an article describing the functions of the land settlement board, telling what had been done at the first settlement-that at Durham, in Butte County. The settlement had then been going less than a year and it was a little too early to pass judgment as to its chances, though they seemed good. Consequently the article was written, properly enough, with some caution.

Now, at the end of another 18 months, with every tract of land of the colony under cultivation by settlers, it looks like a sure bet. It is a gladsome thing to be able to say that the State of California and the land settlement board have gone into business and made good. The Durham land settlement is so complete a success that the board is looking for another area, of 10,000 to 15,000 acres, or for two areas of 5,000 to 10,000 acres apiece, where more settlers can go and do likewise. There is a waiting list of competent men, with families, and money in hand, yards long.

The writer has just completed a trip of visit and search at the Durham colony. He confesses that he went to Durham in a skeptical frame of mind, partly because he is a conservative on legislative stunts for farming and partly because he was planning to write about it for a class of readers who do not get all perspiry about a scheme because it is new or because it looks well on paper.

For one thing, various schemes of putting the man on the land have been tried since Noah embarked on the ark-without too much success. Anybody can settle a piece of soil. In 10 minutes, on the main street of any large city, you could, with a blue print and some colored pictures of lambs gamboling on a green hillside, induce several hundred men to go right back to the land, especially if you didn't demand that they bet any money of their own on their chances, and if you didn't bind them to stay more than six weeks. But you wouldn't thereby lift the noble science of agriculture more than 2 inches from the ground, and when she fell back she'd fall hard.

Without qualification, I'm here to say that the State land settlement at Durham, Calif., is a success. It is a big, genuine, all-round success. And it is a success precisely for the reasons that the usual back-to-the-land movements are not successes-because it is based on shrewd, everyday, fundamental points of common-sense farming and judgment of human nature..

The lecture-hall wheezers on the subject of land settlement believe that all you have to do is put a man on the land, give him what is commonly considered a chance and he will be happy and the land satisfied. Dr. Elwood Mead and the other members of the land settlement board of California believe that if you find the right man and put him on the right land and give him nothing but the kind of help that will make him better able to use his own money and his own talent to the best advantage, he will be happy and the land will be satisfied and the State will gain.

A PLACE FOR SKILLED LABORERS.

And when I say happy I mean, of course, relatively happy. Some farmersgood farmers-are happy in staying where they are all their lives. Some are happier by moving once in a while. The personnel of the Durham colony will

change from year to year, or at least from decade to decade. No matter how much money they make there, some will want to move on to pastures new. But that will not hurt the colony. Later in the article I shall show why it won't.

The land settlement board was authorized to buy, improve, and sell to settlers 10,000 acres of land. A total of 6,219 acres, located in Butte County in the Sacramento Valley, were purchased by the State of California, and this acreage is now the Durham settlement. Part of the land was under cultivation at the time of purchase and had water rights from Butte Creek and a rudimentary irrigation system. The cost of the land which could be irrigated was $100 an acre. About 700 acres, which were above the ditch, cost the State $10 an acre. Irrigation rights were made certain; sanitation was insured; a soil survey was made, and designs for houses and farm buildings were assembled. The sizes of the farms were determined so as to give considerable choice to intending settlers, but keeping each farm within such limits that one family with one farm hand could take care of it. Farms suited to fruit growing were small; units suited to farm crops were larger, even as high as 160 acres.

But the board foresaw that the needs of a rural neighborhood demand something more than farms and farm owners. There was need for carpenters, blacksmiths, laborers. So 26 areas of 2 acres or less were located in three groups at separate parts of the settlement. The notion was to permit the laborer to have enough land to raise a garden, keep a cow and hens, and take a genuine interest in his locality. If he developed a liking and a capacity for farming, he could later qualify for a farm in one of the future settlements.

And so now the lands, properly ready for cultivation and in some cases already under grain, alfalfa, and other crops which, already established, would have to be paid for by the settler, but would insure his being just so much ahead of starting with bare ground-now the units were ready for the men and their families.

This was, of course, the rub. The land. kites who settled people on their speculative acres never worried about the kind of settlers they got, so long as they got the settlers' money. But to the State colony the man was all important. In the first place, the board insisted that each approved applicant should have not less than $1,500 in money or its equivalent in live stock and farming implements. A good deal of objection was made to this provision by well-meaning persons who said that it would exclude worthy and deserving persons who needed just such a chance as the colony would offer. But most real farmers will see, I dare say, that this was another evidence that the land-settlement board was getting off on the right foot-using horse sense.

It is probably true that some worthy persons were thus debarred. But it is a fifty-to-one shot that a prospective colonist, of any age suitable for membership, who hadn't been able to accumulate the equivalent of $1,500, wouldn't make a high-grade farmer at Durham. Besides, the assumption of the farm and improvements and equipment meant an investment of anywhere from $5,000 to $20,000. It is easy to see that a penniless man, besides the fact that he was gambling with other people's chips, would be staggering under too heavy a load. The settlers had to make a cash payment on the land of 5 per cent and have 40 years, if necessary, to complete their payments. They can obtain a loan of 60 per cent of the cost of houses and other permanent improvements and have 20 years to repay this loan. Default of a settler calls for cancellation of the contract of purchase, though under deserving or unusual circumstances the board would probably carry a man along if he had the stuff in him.

The settlers had to begin actual residence within 6 months and must live on the farm at least 8 months a year for 10 years. Provisions are made to prevent the lands from being filed on by dummies for speculators. If any land speculators can get hold of these valuable Durham lands, in spite of the safeguards the board has thrown around them, they will deserve all they get. But the intending settlers, though they were required to have at least $1,500, had to have a good deal more than money. When there were several applicants for a single farm they were asked to appear personally before the board. Mind you, these Sacramento Valley lands which the board had selected were not the kind to go begging. The board was swamped with applications from the jump. Because I think my readers will be interested in the concise details of a land-settlement scheme of such extraordinary scope, with its import to agriculture, particularly in that phase which will have to do with locating ex-soldiers upon the land, I am going to quote here some of the leading questions which the applicant had to answer :

“For what business or purpose do you intend to use the land for which you apply?

"What experience in farming or stock raising have you had?

"What financial assistance will you require to enable you to work the land successfully?

"Are you single, married, or a widower? If married or a widower, state number of children dependent on you.

"What agricultural land or possessory rights thereto do you at present hold or have you an interest in? State particulars, including description.

"What is the value of such agricultural land or possessory rights thereto? "Do you intend to breed live stock?

"Do you approve of the plan of having only one breed of dairy cattle, one breed of beef cattle, and one breed of hogs?

"Do you agree to become a member of a cooperative stock breeders' association, of which all stock breeders in the settlement shall be members, as required by the rules and regulations of the State land-settlement board?"

With answers to these questions and many others before them, Dr. Mead and his associates could decide whether the applicant possessed that true voltaic wiggle in his think tank which would make him not a brother to the ox but a successful, resourceful farmer. The answer is, anyhow, that the present colonists at Durham are a keen, eager, prosperous group of men.

The men who took the farm laborers' allotments were not required to have any capital or equipment, but the board had to exercise even more caution in disposing of these units. In general, married men with families were chosen. A lot of applications came from honest, nonindustrious people who thought they would dearly love to live in such pleasant surroundings as those of the Durham colony. Some of these applicants had education, refinement, incomes-almost everything but the desire to work. The heavy hand of restraint was laid upon these yearners.

THE RIGHT MEN IN CHARGE.

There was one thing more which tended to bring sucess to this experiment— the first of its kind in the country. The right men were in charge of the whole scheme from the beginning, and they, in turn, got the right men to execute the details. Dr. Elwood Mead, besides being an authority on land reclamation, colonization, rural credits, and the like, had made a long study, absorbing the best ideas of Australia, New Zealand, Denmark, and other countries which had colonized settlers. George C. Kreutzer, the superintendent, had been with Dr. Mead in Australia and was in earnest sympathy with the basic elements of the plans. As to irrigation, the board had the advice of a State university expert; the same was true of the problems of architecture, health conditions, surveys, and other vital departments of analysis and project.

These men, enthusiastic about the venture, inoculated others with their enthusiasm. After all, the galvanism of enthusiasm is what creates. Money alone, even the State money, has no magic. Knowledge alone seems to have the brakes set against it, without the winning accompaniment of faith. So far as I can learn, politics has been told to go back and lie down, throughout the achievement of the board's plans. That was a godsend.

It was a fine, sky-blue morning when I arrived at Durham and went to the colony office-no gorgeous affair with mahogany appointments, but a rude, workmanlike shack in which there was evidence that work had been done and more would be.

Mr. Kreutzer, the superintendent, was unavoidably absent on colony business, but the farmstead engineer, Max E. Cook, took me in hand and modestly offered his services as guide and interpreter.

The natural surroundings of the Durham colony are inspiring and beautiful. Away to the east is the rugged background of the Sierras, with Mount Lassen

in the distance; on the west the almond and prune orchards beckon for miles toward the foothills of the Coast Range. The floor of the valley is dotted with fine old oaks, and upon these oaks, in spots, huge wild grapevines have reared their thick foliage.

The wisdom of the land settlement board's plan of seeding as much land as possible to crops before the sale to settlers is immediately apparent. Instead of a half-barren crowd of units, upon which the settlers are struggling to do 10 things at the same time, there are rich fields of alfalfa, and in the early summer there were fire fields of wheat and barley ready for the knife and stubble thereon ready for the hogs.

The settlers paid the State all the expenses of planting the grain crops. It was no charity or pampering expedition. The profit to the board from these crops was more than $2,000. The ditching and leveling of the land and the seeding to alfalfa were regarded as permanent improvements, and the settler paid 40 per cent of the cost.

There are two classes of settlers in whom the farmer, visiting such a colony, would be interested. There are the possessors of the farming units and the occupants of the laborers' areas. The latter are almost as important as the first, for reasons that any up-to-date farmer knows. The importance of having at hand capable artisan and field help when needed is elementary.

The first unit to which we came was that of Axel Lonstrom. Lonstrom is one of the few bachelors of the colony. He is a real farmer, with sugar beet and alfalfa experience in Kern County; something of a voyager, too. Altogether, you might say, one of those rolling stones that have defied the ancient adage by gathering moss as they rolled. He was in Alaska for a number of years. Now he is the proud possessor of 40 acres or so of valley land, much of it in alfalfa cutting an average of 21 tons to the acre at a cutting-some of it totaling 12 tons to the acre. He paid the State $238 an acre for his unit and expects to pay for his place in three or four years and have it scot clear, if everything goes well. He raised alfalfa before and knows what he is doing. Lonstrom is the handler of the community boar. For you must know the colony has decided to specialize on certain breeds of live stock-Holstein cattle, Duroc-Jersey hogs, Romney Marsh and Rambouillet sheep. Also the beef breed will be Shorthorns.

THAT JOYOUS T. B." DANCE.

Carl Nielson was the next man we visited. Nielson is one of the show settlers of the community. I had a feeling that I was reaching some unusual man and place when I observed that the embankments of the irrigation ditches on the farm we were approaching were all free from weeds and brush. Then we came to a rugged, ruddy man, with a flaxen-haired little girl, building fence along the roadside. That was Nielson. That was the settler who drove onto the Durham grounds one day in a creaking jitney and allowed that he was a candidate for an allotment. He didn't look like much of a farmer or anything, he had been traveling so far in the dust, but when they asked him if he had the requisite equivalent of $1,500 he breathed a long sigh and said he had $12,000. And while waiting for an allotment he shoveled concrete at day's wages. He Iwas that kind of a man.

Nielsen, a born cattle handler, is the keeper of the community bull-or one of them. Fred Kiesel, the banker of Sacramento, gave the colony a Holstein sire of fine breeding; another sire was bought. And just to show how this bunch gets together, I'll tell how they bought it.

When the settlers decided on the sire, which was a grandson of Tilly Alcartra and cost them $600, they didn't go out and borrow the money, as they might have done. They held a meeting and sold debentures. It took a few minutes by the clock to dispose of the debentures. Service fees of $10 will soon take care of the baby bonds.

Then, here's another thing. The dairymen of the colony voted to produce grade A milk and nothing else. To do this, of course, barns and equipment have to be put in a certain degree of sanitary perfection. Also, it was necessary to have a tuberculin test. That meant that they lost cows. But a few weeks later they held a "T. B." dance and took in enough money to write off part of the loss. It is interesting to note that one of the men who was strongest for the test lost the most cattle. He never winced.

But if the Durham farmers are interesting, so are the farm laborers on their little areas, too. Last spring Dr. Elwood Mead offered prizes for the best

gardens grown by the laborers on their plots. The first prize went to D. H. LaGrone, who describes his venture as follows:

"My patch of corn, grown from a few grains taken from the ear you sent from North Carolina, is the wonder of all who see it. Now in tassel, the stalks are 15 feet high. I also have a wonderful hill of cantaloupes. About 60 grown cantaloupes have been taken from that one hill and it will probably yield 100 in all.

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My little potato patch of one-sixteenth of an acre made 1,000 pounds that sold for $50. The potatoes were dug and sold before the 1st day of June and the land has been planted to cantaloupes and melons which are now in bloom. "I have a single row of squash about 50 feet long and 2 short rows each about 25 feet long. I have sold from these more than 400 pounds at 5 cents a pound. I sold about half at 6 cents a pound to merchants. I have about 100 fine watermelons on vines which I expect to be as large as any grown in the State. I also sold a few snap beans, cucumbers and beets. The vegetables have brought over $80. Were I to sell everything they would probably bring $250.

"All grown on a piece of land 60 by 160 feet! My garden lies along the irrigation ditch. It was used several years ago as a hog lot, consequently it is a very rich piece of land."

This man came to the colony little better than a "blanket-stiff" as they call the roamers in California. Now, besides furnishing all the vegetables for use in his house and clearing a tidy sum on produce sold, he has been steadily working for wages and is a regular all-wool man.

Some of the holders of these two-acre allotments saved $1,000 out of their first year's income. Think of it! In an article in The Country Gentleman lately, I recall Dean Davenport figured the farmer income, the country over, at possibly not more than $600. Little wonder that the board has a rush of applications for allotments!

The families on the 2-acre allotments have done more than well. The laborers have earned from $2.50 to $3.50 a day, with board, or $4.50 where they have boarded at home. Several holders of these allotments are figuring already on taking farms. On the other hand, there is the type of man who loves country life, but does not want the responsibility of owning a farm. One such case in the colony is that of a farm laborer who came with a capital of $4,700. He could have taken over a big tract, but he preferred to work for others.

Of the men holding laborers' allotments 4 are ex-miners; 11 were common laborers; 7 were carpenters; 3 were farmers; 1 a ditch tender; 1 a motorman. On the larger farm areas the diversity of former employment is worth noting. Of course, we begin with men who farmed before coming to the colony. Half the allotments are held by those men. Forty-two farmers in all have taken up the colony tracts. But behind them comes this bewildering list of men, some of whom are swinging the pick for the first time:

The former farm adviser mentioned in the above list is H. F. Bahmeier, who previously assisted the farmers of San Bernardino County to get better crops. He says that, now on the land for himself, he is surprised to find that much of the advice he used to give was really good.

Well, this is fine, so far; but there was a question lurking in my mind as I went round through the Durham Colony. It was a very sordid question, but one I felt sure all who read my article would want to know. So finally I