for its part was to receive half of all the
crops. It also promised to give water. But when the time came the
company supplied only thirty horses instead of forty, and only three
plows for the whole colony; it also failed to furnish water. The land
was good, but without water it was of no use. The settlers battled for
two years and then left the land. Each lost from $500 to $1,000.

About two years ago a farmer owning lands in the San Joaquin Valley got
in touch with Russian peasants in Los Angeles. He agreed to sell these
people land, with houses, stock, etc., at what seemed a nominal first
payment--$200. It looked like a wonderful opportunity to the simple
peasants, who, by their industry, had saved up two or three hundred
dollars or more. About 120 families were induced to make the first
deposit ($10 or $20). Then Prof. W. T. Clarke of the agricultural
extension service of the University of California was asked by the
Immigration Commission to visit this tract and report on it. He found
that it was the poorest kind of alkali land--land that a grasshopper
would starve on. The farmer who was selling the land raised strenuous
objections to the investigation and the resulting report, but the
commission succeeded in shutting off the entire deal, except in the
cases of four or five peasants who insisted on taking the farms and who
are now making a failure of it.

On an attempt of the peasants to settle in Utah, twenty families contracted
to buy farms at $100 per acre, 130 acres to a family. One fourth of the
crops were to be paid to the company, which promised to provide water; but
the company failed to find water and all the settlers and the company
itself went to pieces. The settlers' losses were very heavy, some losing
$1,000, some $2,000. They were again compelled to return to Los Angeles.

In 1907 certain agents of a German sugar company in Honolulu appeared
and promised to sell the peasants good land in Honolulu. Thirty families
made contracts to buy farms of forty acres, with the stipulation that
they would pay the price gradually out of their income from the farms.
When the families arrived in Honolulu there was no land for them. The
company explained that they had been merely hired for work on its
plantation. Under the conditions of labor there they were half slaves
and the life became unendurable. After six months of trial and hardship
they returned to Los Angeles, each family having lost from $600 to $700.