The Last of the Prune-Pickers: A Pre-Silicon Valley Story
Dedication
Poem: Of Plums and Prunes
Acknowledgements
Preface
Contents
PART I
1. The Setting
2. The Rise and Fall of the Missions
3. The Californios
4. The Americans
5. The Tidal Wave
6. The Wheat Farms
7. Red Rocks, Lumber, Oil and Straw
8. From Rancho to Farms
9. The Garden of the World
10. Orcharding
11. Olives, Grapes and Berries
12. The Sunsweet Story
13. A Day in the Cannery
14. The End of an Era
PART II
15. Early Days of the Farm
16. Growing Up on the farm
17. Cock Sure and Turkey Milk
18. A Drunk Cow and a Kleptomaniac
19. A Moo at the Door and the Mayor’s Dog
20. ‘Cots
21. The Old Farmer
22. Picking Prunes
23. You Shouldn’t Have Gone Along
24. Clean-up
25. The White Truck
26. Harmony
27. The Buck-Saw and the Man-Killer
28. Other Work
29. Sheep
30. Chipper
31. The Whizzin’ Machine
32. The Help
33. The Business Formula
34. The Decommissioning
35. When the Cat’s Away…
36. The Trailer Incident
37. Eat All You Want
38. Free Pipe
39. Solitude
40. “But Mom, It’s My Home!”
41. Transitions
Epilogue
Appendix I: Plot Plan of the Pitman Farm
Appendix II: Modern Harvesting
Appendix III: S. Clara Co. Land Grants Chart
Appendix IV: Rancho Quito Area Now
Photo Credits
Bibliography
Notes