The changes made by men over here are most unexpected and often quite startling. The man who did all the hauling of our heavy furniture out to the ranch from the water front in San Miguel, some seventeen miles by road, was once a lawyer in the East. The indoor life did not suit him, and he never really liked his profession, so he came out here and has drifted into this, becoming one of the most skilled teamsters in all the neighbourhood. On a neighbouring large ranch, where a good deal of labour is employed, and which the proprietor only visits occasionally for a few odd days, the manager and overseer is, or rather was, a doctor, and a very good manager he makes. An elderly rancher we came across had been a soldier during the Civil War; a farmer in the East; had driven an express waggon, and after ranching a short time in the South and finding it difficult to make both ends meet, emigrated to Oregon and became a member of the State Legislature, in which position the salary was probably not the only pecuniary advantage. We had not been long in the North when we decided that the climate was not good enough. We had left home and come six thousand miles, and were critical. It was damp and windy. In the fruit valleys, the summers were quite as hot, if not more so, than in the middle South. Most of the early fruit comes from this part, and in the winter there was rain, more or less constantly, for four months. In consequence of the heavier rainfall, the North is much greener than the South; the hills too are beautifully wooded with every variety of tree. But in many neighbourhoods the work of ranching is more fatiguing than in the South; the soil is heavier, and the longer wet season has many disadvantages for people who do their own ranching. By this time the uncertainty and general homeless feeling of our lives was beginning to be almost unendurable. There were so many things to consider; firstly, which kind of fruit paid the best and was the least subject to accidents and the disappointments of bad seasons; secondly, the quality of land best suited to such fruit and the conveniences for getting it to market; thirdly, the amount of water to be had; this last quite as vital as any point whatsoever about the land. In fact one might almost be said to buy water with land attached, so great is the value of a certainty of enough water. We were so much impressed with this, that we were quite determined to buy land only where there was a well-tried and well-established irrigating system, and where all the water difficulties of the neighbourhood were solved and settled.