The California land is ripe with growing produce. The toil and ingenuity of many men create this bountiful harvest: Growers strive to learn better techniques for yielding succulent fruit, and chemists experiment with pesticides to protect crops from insects and disease. But the large landowners drive the price of labor down, and the small farmer, who pours his sweat and passion into the land, cannot afford to harvest it. He must turn his holding over to the great companies. The food that cannot be gathered must be destroyed. If hungry people are allowed free food from the fields, store prices will plummet. Crops are burned as hungry people watch, their anger mounting.
