That  historic  season  of  famine  brought  about,  very  promptly
and  on  a  very  large  scale,  a  new  willingness  to  sell  land  to  set-
tlers in  something  less  than  ten-thousand-acre  lots.  Even  more
than  the  Chinese  Exclusion  Act — the  only  historic  happening
which  can  be  at  all  counted  in  the  same  category  as  influential
in  changing  the  character  of  California  farming  from  the  big-
gest in  the  world,  and  the  most  reckless,  and  in  a  sense  the
most  stupid,  to  the  smallest  and  the  most  intensive,  and  in  many
senses  the  most  scientific — this  empiric  happening  of  a  season
remade  the  economic  fortunes  of  an  empire.     To  this  day  there


THE   RIGHT  HAND    OF    THE    CONTINENT    417

are  still  probably  larger  farms  in  California  than  anywhere
else  ;  but  these  are  already  survivals.  The  typical  California
farming  now  is  of  a  small  acreage,  occupied  not  by  tenants  but
by  the  American  owner ;  tilled  not  to  a  single  crop — while  its
farmer  buys  his  potatoes,  beans,  corn,  vegetables,  fruit  and  even
the  flour  made  from  his  own  wheat,  as  used  to  be  true,  even  fif-
teen years  ago — but  of  a  manifold  crop ;  and  on  the  average
drawing  toward  the  ideal  wherein  each  little  farm  shall  be  self-
centered  and  self-supporting  ;  where  a  man  with  five  acres  or
ten  acres  may  produce,  and  does  produce,  practically  everything
needful  to  the  sustenance  and  comfort  of  his  family,  and  has
only  to  purchase,  with  his  surplus  product,  their  luxuries.
