The plan of the society was to buy the land, and thereupon to cause it to be subdivided and improved as I have said by monthly contributions from the members, who were meantime to go on with their usual employments in San Francisco. It was agreed to divide the eleven hundred and sixty-five acres into fifty twenty-acre tracts, and fifty village lots, the village to stand in the centre of the purchase. Fourteen lots were also set aside for school-houses and other public buildings. With the first contribution the land was bought. The fifty associates had to pay about fifty dollars each for this purpose. This done, they appointed Mr. Hansen their agent to make the projected improvements; and they, it may be supposed, worked a little more steadily and lived a little more frugally in San Francisco. He employed Spaniards and Indians as laborers; and what he did was to dig a ditch seven miles long to lead water out of the Santa Anna River, with four hundred and fifty miles of subsidiary ditches and twenty-five miles of feeders to lead the water over every twenty-acre lot. This done, he planted on every farm eight acres of grapes and some fruit-trees; and on the whole place over five miles of outside willow fencing and thirty-five miles of inside fencing. Willows grow rapidly in that region, and make a very close fence, yielding also fire-wood sufficient for the farmer's use. All this had to be done gradually, so that the payments for labor should not exceed the monthly contributions of the associates, for they had no credit to use in the beginning, and contracted no debts. When the planting was done, the superintendent cultivated and pruned the grape-vines and trees, and took care of the place; and it was only when the vines were old enough to bear, and thus to yield an income at once, that the proprietors took possession. At the end of three years the whole of this labor had been performed and paid for; the vines were ready to bear a crop, and the division of lots took place. Each shareholder had at this time paid in all twelve hundred dollars; a few, I have been told, fell behind somewhat, but were helped by some of their associates who were in better circumstances. If we suppose that most of the members had no money laid by at the beginning of the enterprise, it would appear that during three years they saved, over and above their living, somewhat less than eight dollars a week--a considerable sum, but easily possible at that time in California to a good and steady mechanic.