Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 38.djvu/821

Rh growth of horticultural industries has made so many demands for work-girls in the country that the factory system can not be established in California for years to come.

Many California women are making horticultural ventures. Teachers, clerks, type-writers, and saleswomen seem particularly apt to buy land and plant vines or trees. An association of about a hundred women are becoming florists. Another group is interested in buhach, the Persian insect-powder plant. Within a hundred miles of San Francisco the conditions necessary to the successful culture of leading fruits can be obtained. The extent to which women are turning their attention to this field is noteworthy, and must prove one of the important elements in the organization of the "coming California." One finds women directing outdoor operations in every part of the State, and several of the largest orchards are owned and superintended by women.

Labor organizations are strong in California, containing about thirty thousand wage-earners, and collecting over $100,000 a year in dues in San Francisco alone. The trades-unions of San Francisco and vicinity have twenty thousand members. Hours of labor among unorganized classes of workmen range from twelve to sixteen, among the organized classes from eight to ten. In the matter of strikes the trades-unions have sometimes been difficult to control, reckless and dangerous, especially during the "period of transition." Between 1880 and 1886 there were one hundred and seven strikes in California, affecting 6,763 men and women, and losing 1,508 working days, at a cost of $324,639 to the strikers and $311,093 to the employers. Seventy-seven of them succeeded. There were nine lock-outs, all but one among the cigar-manufacturers. Since 1886 the number of strikes and lock-outs has diminished by one half. The largest ones have been in the foundries and iron-works, those industries being in a state of depression. Public sympathy has been with the employers in most of the recent strikes, as the favorable conditions of workingmen in California are well understood.

The Chinese problem, so called, has but little vitality, although it is still a fruitful subject for newspaper editorials and sensational space-writing. The masses of Californians appear to think that the present laws are reasonably well enforced. Orchard and vineyard extensions may cause such a demand for "cheap labor" that the farmers and orchardists, who have hitherto depended a great deal upon Chinese, will form a pro-Chinese party. It was the fruit-growers as a class that broke up and defeated the Chinese boycott in California a few years ago. The ground they take is that they prefer white labor, but they will not see their crops lost when Chinese can be had, and they will not allow any dictation from trades-unions or boycotters. The Chinese now in