I did buy a little equipment that first year. The first thing was a front mounted cultivatorfor my Farmall tractor. The system we had worked out for planting required a front cultivator and a trailing sled cultivator. On the front I had a furrowing shovel in front of each rear wheel, and a chisel point in front of each outside sled runner. I also mounted a tank for soil fumigant, and six applicator shanks, to place the fumigant about four inches deep, in bands twelve inches on both sides of the three seed rows. This was a new product, and a new method of application. Fumazone made it possible to fumigate against Nematodes and other soil pests at planting time, or even after planting. All the older products had to be in the ground for two weeks before planting. That meant fumigating "solid", since you did not know where the rows were going to be. Being able to strip-fume meant that we were fuming only 40% of the field. The application rate was 4/10ths of a gallon per acre; total cost about twelve dollars per acre. The old method cost about thirty dollars per acre, including application. The planters were mounted on the back bars of the sled.

As soon as the weeding was done I cultivated again, followed by an application of liquid fertilizer. This process was called "side dressing", as opposed to "broadcast". For this I used curved knives with delivery tubes welded to the back of the knife. Two shanks per row were mounted on the front cultivator. Pure Grow furnished a tank trailer with a wheel driven pump, and a flow divider to deliver a constant, even flow of fertilizer to each applicator. The rig was calibrated to deliver the equivalent of 50 pounds of nitrogen per acre. I used a mix that also contained some phosphate, and maybe some potassium. The nice thing about using liquid was that it was immediately available to the plants.

My $250 John Deere

I never will forget that first day! First days are always hectic. The machines may have a few kinks to straighten out, crews have to be trained as to what fruit to leave on the belts and what to take off, tractor drivers have to learn their responsibilities. And there is always the tension of getting that first load through inspection. Add to that the fact that all of us had to learn how to handle a bulk machine and highway trailers in the field to their best advantage. I had decided to put Trini on the bulk machine, for reasons that I don’t remember. I brought Trini to the field the day before to show him all the controls, and let him practice a little on some open ground. Then on the first day I rode with him for a while to make sure that he knew how everything worked. The most crucial thing on those machines was the depth of the cutting knives. If that wasn’t right nothing else was going to work very well. Once I was sure he understood all the controls, I left him alone. I knew that he would learn faster if I was not looking over his shoulder. I will have to say that he really struggled all morning. Ralph was getting restless, for good reason. I had a little private talk with Trini. I told him how Ralph felt. He assured me that by the end of the day he would have "la mano"—the hand, or as we would say, have a handle on it. He did get better in the afternoon, but Ralph was still not convinced. I had to talk pretty fast to get him to agree to another day. I would like to think that it was great insight and wisdom that prompted me to go to bat so strongly for Trini. More likely it was the memory of how long it had taken to train other drivers.

Day two was much better. Trini kept pace with the other machine. Starting with day three he consistently outperformed the bin machine. Of course part of that was the greater efficiency of loading bulk rather than bins. For my part, there were fewer trucks to be loaded with the forklift, so that made life easier!

I truly don’t remember what the Camarillo fields produced that year, maybe 18 or 20 tons per acre. Of course the Moorpark field was a total disaster. I rather think that when Ralph finished my fields he harvested for Birkenshaw again. I went with him to run the operation, as I had been doing all season.

When the crop was all in, the bills all paid, and the bank loan paid, it was time for some careful reflection on all that I had done, and where I could do better. In spite of a total failure in Moorpark, we had repaid the bank, had our own savings back, and had taken out enough money to pay our household expenses. After what I had experienced with Ralph, breaking even was a triumph of the first magnitude! Also, I had learned a few things about myself. Much to my surprise, I found that I worried much less about my own operation than when I was working for Ralph. I thought it would have been the opposite! I was able to make the daily decisions easily and quickly, then go home and leave it all in the field.

I also thought about all the successful growers that I knew. I figured that, on average, they were no smarter than I was, only more experienced. And some of them had much more overhead expense than I had. If they can make it, I can make it! I talked it all over with Barbara, of course. She seemed to be OK with my plan to charge ahead, though less enthusiastic than I.

By far my biggest expense that year was for harvest. Of the $28.50 I was paid for a ton of tomatoes, I paid Ralph $12.50 for harvest. If I was to stay in business, I had to have my own harvester. I didn’t want to go through the learning process again, so I was looking for a used Blackwelder. Preston told me of a machine for sale in Buelton. I also got in touch with Tom Bettancourt, the Blackwelder sales representative. He told me of a machine in Gilroy, and two in Patterson, or thereabouts. He also said that they, Blakwelder, had a used machine in the shop that was for sale.

Barbara and I drove north to look at all of them. The machine in Buelton was in pretty good shape, but the owners had been waiting months for a Ford part that had failed. That sort of spooked me. The machines in Gilroy and Patterson were well used. So, we ended up at the Blackwelder plant in Rio Vista. Tom met us there. He explained that one of their dealers had made a deal that involved taking four older harvesters in trade. To help out the dealer, Blackwelder had agreed to take one of the trades. What Tom proposed was that they would completely overhaul the machine; all new bearings, new conveyor belts and chains, new shakers. In other words all the wearing parts would be new. In addition, they would put in all the upgrades that had come out up to that time. That meant a bulk elevator, and a sickle mower in place of knives to cut the plants at the ground. That feature alone was compelling to me! We made a deal in short order. I think that I paid a little more than seven thousand dollars, including sales tax and delivery to Oxnard. That had to be, far and away, the best deal I ever made in my life, as a buyer or seller. It was a fair price, but that machine made more money for me than anything else I could have purchased. Several years later I learned that a classmate of my brother Alan named Joe Smith had moved to Patterson to farm and that he was the one that had first owned my machine. It truly is a small world!

I knew that I would need my own crawler tractor sooner or later, so I started shopping for a late model TD-9. The only two that I found were not very attractive, so I ended up buying a used Alice Chalmers HD-6 from Wallace Machinery. By this time my buddy Norm Frost was working for Bob Powers, the AC dealer. I checked with him about the HD-6. He said that it had belonged to Nishimori Brothers, and that they had completely overhauled the tractor about a year before trading it in. I think I paid $3600 for the tractor. At some point I bought Ralph’s disc, ring roller and subsoiler, including a second tool bar that carried coil-shank chisels.

Gerry worked with me to double disc, plow, and subsoil all the fields. In Moorpark all we did was disc the plants into the ground. It was understood that we would leave the ground clean whenever we left a ranch. I borrowed an Atlas two-way plow from a friend that first year. I returned it with all new shares and landsides. A good deal for both of us!

That winter Barbara did something for me that seemed insignificant at the time, but turned out to be the instrument of whatever success I had as a grower. She brought home a yearbook for me to make entries in. At first I didn’t quite know what I was going to do with it. I sure didn’t need to write down appointments, because I had no appointments. Anyway, I put it in the PU and started writing down the things that I had done every day; ground work, planting, cultivating, weeding, irrigation, harvest, etc. Along with the bare facts I made some comments about good and bad results. At the end of the year I realized that this book could be a guide for the following year. When I quit farming, I still had all those yearbooks. After the end of the following year I realized that there was a definite, repeating pattern to the farming cycle. There was a predictable time after planting that was best for the first irrigation, an optimum time between irrigations, and a predictable harvest date. Of course all of these things varied according to variety and soil and field location. Weather conditions had some, but very little effect.

Preston was a great help in figuring out a planting schedule. He always kept informed on the number of days that it took for each variety to get from emergence to harvest. Also he had the collective experience of all his growers to work with. When we sat down to write a contract he made out the delivery schedule. Hunt’s agreed to take a certain number of tons each week, usually 400 or 500 tons, starting in late August. Preston also had a good handle on how long it took for the seed to emerge at various planting times. Seed planted in late Feb. took nearly three weeks; March plantings were about two weeks; April plantings ten to twelve days. I had a few early May plantings that emerged in seven days. A variety that normally took 125 days from emergence to harvest might take 128 days if it was planted early. Naturally, the plants that grew in maximum heat and daylight matured the fastest. With all these variables in mind, I could start with a projected harvest date and work backward to get an emergence date and a planting date. Going forward from the emergence date I could predict when the irrigations should be. I also learned that I could be somewhat flexible on the first irrigation, but after that I better irrigate by the calendar, not what the field looked like. Having a schedule made out allowed me to use my sprinkler pipe efficiently. I never had two fields that needed water at the same time. Over time that changed of course, as I farmed more ground and had more pipe. It is sort of amazing how close all of this worked out. I seldom missed a harvest date by more than a day or two.

Another lesson I learned was to concentrate on the things that I could control. It was a total waste of time and energy to worry about the things I could not control, such as the weather. I just had to do the very best I could with those things that were within my power to control. Fretting over a decision never made it easier. I tried to bring all my knowledge and experience to bear on the problem and make a decision immediately. If action was needed, why not get started on it as soon as possible? That way I could go home with an uncluttered mind.

That second year I planted the Doan Ranch and about 35 acres of the Mobil field. As I mentioned, I wanted out of Moorpark. Albert was kind enough to let me continue to use the old shop, so that was sort of a home base for storing things.

Gerry helped me through the winter and early plantings, then left on his extended trip to Europe. I could handle the late planting and cultivating by myself. I had figured out that I could mount both the planters and cultivating knives on the sled at the same time. To plant, I raised the knives up out of the way. To cultivate, the planters came up and the knives went down. Using soapstone markers, I marked the exact depth of the knives in the down position, so making the change was only a matter of minutes. This way I never got behind on my cultivating, like I had the year before.

I really enjoyed cultivating. It was a very important operation, but more than that it was so rewarding to look at a clean field at the end of the day. For the first cultivation I used three pairs of concave discs spaced about two inches apart that straddled the three tomato rows. Since the discs were rolling they never got plugged with weeds or trash. The discs also moved the dirt slightly away from the plants. Behind the discs came two flat knives on each side of each row. The dirt coming over the knives filled the depression left by the discs. Behind these knives were another set of V-shaped knives to cut the weeds in the furrows. Finally, there were furrowing shovels to open the furrows again. I ran the tractor at about four miles per hour. I covered fifteen feet in width with each pass, leaving only three two-inch wide bands of un-cultivated ground. I could easily do 30 acres in a day, and have plenty of time to go to town for coffee! Just think; it had only been thirty years since I had done that job with two mules and a riding cultivator, one row at a time, and at a snail’s pace! For subsequent cultivations I did not use the discs, and in some cases I used fewer knives.

When it came time to irrigate, I was able to hire a young man to help out with that. He was in school, so he only came in the afternoon when it was time to move pipe. I used the labor contractor again to weed and thin. Sometime during that spring Ralph came over to talk to me. He needed to sell his TD-9B. His creditors were after him, and that tractor was somewhat at risk. He offered to sell it to me for $4000. I had intended to rent a second tractor for harvest, but this was too good to pass up. I talked to my banker, and he was agreeable to extending me more credit. So, for someone that didn’t want to go too fast, I wasn’t doing too well! I had bought two crawler tractors, a harvester, and most of Ralph’s tillage tools! Oh well.

I pretty much played the irrigation by ear the second year. When the season was over, I realized that there was an identifiable pattern. The lighter ground, Mobil, needed water every three weeks, three irrigations. The heavier ground, Doan Ranch, could wait longer for the first irrigation, then only required two irrigations, four weeks apart.

Gerry was home from Europe in time to help me with harvest. Earlier in the year I looked up Trini to arrange for him to bring his crew. The entire family worked for Bob Jones Berry Farm in the spring, picking strawberries. Trini was a crew boss. As the day approached for harvest, I went to Oxnard to make final arrangements, only to find out that Trini was in Mexico on business. Panic time! I was assured that he would be back in a few days, but I was still concerned. As it turned out he did make it back in time for harvest.

That first morning was sort of like an episode of the three stooges. I had to break in two tractor drivers and the sorting crew. We had not yet worked out a good way to open "lands", that is lay out a pattern of 40 or 50 rows that the machine could go around, making all left turns. This had not been necessary with the bin machines and small trailers. The year before, with Ralph’s machines, we had used the bin machine to open lands for the bulk machine. Anyway, we started off trying to go back and forth, rather than round and round. That meant backing up the big trailers to be able to turn around. What a mess! Of course all of my friends had to stop by to see how we were doing. All of their good-natured advice didn’t help one bit! All in all, it was not an auspicious beginning. By midmorning things were running smoothly. I think we picked two loads that day, then pretty much three loads a day the rest of the season. My fields all produced 22 to 24 tons per acre, which was a big improvement over the first year.

When my harvest was winding down, Preston told me that Berylwood was going to need some help. I arranged with Fred Buchannon to start work on a field in Somis the day after we were done in Camarillo. We worked in Somis for about a week, then we moved back to Camarillo to work for Dick Underwood for nearly a week. I don’t remember the figures exactly, but I know that the profit on those two jobs completely paid for my machine. Add to that the money that I saved on my own harvest, and it made for a very nice year! I forgot to mention that we got a couple of dollars more per ton from Hunt’s that year.

I was pleased with the way the harvester performed. Getting rid of the knives, and replacing them with a sickle mower sure made life easier. The sickle did require some maintenance, but you always knew it was going to cut! I bought one or two extra cutter bars that I could keep new sections on, ready to be installed on the machine. Sections, by the way, are the actual cutting blades that do the work. The sections would wear out in time. We also had a few weeds that could break the sections, or sometimes a rock would break them. I learned to have a spare sickle on the machine at all times. I gave Trini a few tools, so that he could change sickles when needed. It only took a few minutes.

When harvest was over, I moved the machine back to Moorpark. I parked it outside the little shop that Albert let me use. As time permitted through the winter, I did the work necessary to get it ready for another year. Gerry double disced all the fields. I had seen a pull type four bottom Atlas plow in front of Wallace Machinery for some time. It seems as though, partly through my own efforts as a salesman, everybody was using wheel tractors with mounted plows. This plow had become obsolete, even though it was new. I kept dickering with the salesman until I was able to buy it for about half it’s original price. So, I started plowing in back of Gerry. At this point, I sort of broke ranks from the other growers. They tended to subsoil, then plow. Sometimes they did one or the other. I decided to plow, then disc to break up the clods, run a leveler over it, and then subsoil. This left the ground open at least twenty inches deep, without a bunch of clods on top. I’m not sure if my system was good or bad, but it seemed to work for me. In the spring I used a springtooth harrow to loosen the ground and get rid of the weeds. To prepare for planting I went over the ground a couple of times with a wooden harrow with short spikes on it. The idea was to have the ground nice and firm, with the moisture close to the surface.

During that winter one of the old time farmers, Gus Ferro, cut back on his farming operation. He had an auction to sell his surplus equipment. I bought a twenty-four foot harrow and a bin trailer, of all things! I built some pipe racks on it for moving irrigation pipe. The harrow I bought to leave on one ranch that was hard to get in and out of.

Little by little, I was accumulating lots of "stuff". I can’t put an exact time frame on some of these purchases, but in the first three years I bought a Miller Roughneck welder generator. It was small enough to carry in my pick-up all the time. I also got a small electric air compressor that I carried in the truck. My acetylene-welding outfit was bolted to the floor of the truck. One side of the full width toolbox had welding supplies, electric drill, portable grinder, and impact wrench. The other side had wrenches, hammers, etc. I had a small vice bolted to the inside of the tailgate, so when I let it down, I had a nice workbench, and all the tools. Having everything in the truck was handy all year, and vital at harvest time.

There were two Schreiner families in the equipment business in Oxnard. Matt and his son Bill were Oliver dealers. Schreiner Bros., George and Walt, sold Case for years then changed to David Brown, an imported tractor. Both of these dealers did lots of fabricating. I had George and Walt build me a twenty-foot springtooth harrow frame, with drawbar, or "evener". I used the shanks from the old harrow that I got from Douglas, and a few new ones. They also built a twenty-foot wooden peg harrow for me. I had them make a special high clearance pipe trailer. I used that for the sprinkler pipe and the bin trailer for mainline. I bought a used ¾ ton IH PU for Gerry to drive. I got a 120-gallon gas tank and transfer pump for his PU, to use for fueling tractors and the harvester. He also had a large toolbox, and a set of wrenches. From Matt Schreiner I bought a new Marvin sled cultivator and also a three point hitch cultivator. Berylwood had sold their ranches to Etna Life Ins. Co. Etna got out of the row crop farming business. That meant they had several tractors for sale. I bought a Farmall 540-Diesel with front cultivator from them for $2400, I believe. I also got several long tool bars for my new cultivators. This tractor became the main workhorse for planting and cultivating. It was cheaper to run than the gas tractor, and most importantly, it had a GREAT seat. It was fully adjustable, mounted on shock absorbers and springs, and could easily be swung up and back, so that I could stand up to rest my back while cultivating. I loved that tractor!

Walt Schreiner told me that they had sold a new 45 ft. Eversman Leveler to Tom Brucker, and were taking in a used 40 footer. He suggested that I deal directly with Tom if I wanted the Leveler. I made a deal to buy it for $1200. I bought a "tool porter" from Manuel Gill. A tool porter is a trailer that can straddle large implements, pick them up and transport them on the highway. Another thing that I had to buy was what is called a "converter gear". That consisted of a truck axle and short drawbar, with the lower half of a fifth wheel mounted on top. We used this to convert the semi trailer from a set of doubles to a pull trailer to be pulled by one of the tractors. (For tomato harvest). Actually, I had one converter gear stolen right out of my yard in Santa Rosa Valley, and had to buy another one.

In 1973 I bought a new ¾ ton IH pickup for myself, tomato red, of course! By then one of Gerry’s friends was working for me and I let him drive to and from work in my old truck. By then it was getting hard to get gasoline, so I had a second gas tank installed in my truck. The only other thing I bought new was an IH Vibra-Shank chisel. I used this on some of the heavier ground to work a little deeper than a springtooth was capable of.

In order to start the fall groundwork before we had finished harvest, I bought another used TD-9B, from Matt Schreiner. This way, as soon as a portion of the field was harvested, I could get a tractor and disc started. I always tried to get all that work done before the winter rains. At the time I bought this tractor, I probably should have found a large wheel tractor instead. The problem was that would have meant buying new tools to go with it. With all crawlers, the tools were interchangeable.

After the second year, I exercised my option to buy the rented irrigation pipe. In the next two years I bought two more systems of similar size.

For the next portion of this story, I need to go back to 1946, after I got out of the army. Bob Cannell mentioned that there were a bunch of large picnic style tables with benches for sale in Hueneme. They had come out of the Navy Base there. He suggested that we take the ranch truck down, and bring some tables back. I think they were $10.00 each, and he bought two or three and I bought one. What I remember about that trip was that as we drove through the lower end of Santa Rosa Valley he pointed out a ranch that was known as the Camarillo Dairy Ranch. It belonged to Adolfo Camarillo. Bob told me that everyone that ever farmed that ranch had gone broke. "Just tuck that little bit of information in the back of your head Leigh boy. It might come in handy some day". I drove past that ranch hundreds of times while I worked in Oxnard, and most of the time the ground lay idle. Then, in the mid sixties, that portion of the ranch, and more, was sold to a large development company. The first thing they did was to create the Camrosa County Water District, to supply water for the development that was to follow, as well as agricultural water to the farmers. The development didn’t happen as planned, so they started leasing the ground for farming. A man named Gus Ferro leased the portion that had been the Camarillo Dairy. Gus was what I guess you would call a non-customer of mine when I was selling equipment. I called on him regularly, but never sold him anything. Gus hired Mel Nunez to do some extensive earthmoving, in order to be able to furrow irrigate all the fields. Then he started planting various vegetable crops. It seemed to me that every time I drove by the ranch, they had water running in every field. After about three years Gus pulled out. Maybe Bob was right!

I was working for Ralph when Gus gave up on that ranch. Ralph suggested that maybe he should try to rent it. I told him what Bob had said many years before. That and the fact that Gus was telling everyone that the ranch had been his "write off" ranch, kind of spooked Ralph, so he didn’t pursue it. So, once again the ground was idle.

In the late winter of 1972-3 one of my neighbors in Camarillo, Dick Giesler, told me an interesting story. Another development Company had purchased all the ground that Gus had been farming, with the intention of building a gated community called Leisure Village. Some mutual friends of Dick and I, Miller and Bocalli, had leased the portion of the ranch that was not going to be developed right away. They then went to the Production Credit Association to arrange financing for the farming operation. I guess they told the loan officer about leasing the ranch. I think it was a clerical error, but in any case Production Credit filed a lien against the property, in order to be certain that they would be repaid. When the project manager for Leisure Village got a notice of the lien he was furious, naturally. He would not be able to start his project with a lien against the property. He kicked Miller and Bocalli off, and got the lien removed.

Dick was farming a field adjoining Leisure Village, and assured me that it was good ground. I badly needed more ground to farm, so I decided to see what I might be able to do with it. The first thing I did was to talk to the last man to farm it. I already knew what Gus Ferro thought of it, so I looked up his ranch foreman instead. His take on it was very different. " I know that Gus bad-mouthed the ranch, but I always grew good crops there. In fact, the best crop of spinach I ever grew was on that ranch". Armed with that information I spent some time walking over the property with a shovel to turn up some soil to look at and feel. The soil ranged from good to nearly pure sand. There were several water meters strategically located for irrigating. It had not been farmed for a year or two, so it was overgrown with weeds. There was an area where the tumbleweeds had accumulated in a pile 8 or 10 feet high in places, several hundred feet long and 50 to 100 feet wide. This happened to be on some of the better ground. I knew from my conversation with Dick that the tumble-weeds would have to go, one way or another. I also knew that the Fire Dept. wanted all the standing weeds put down. I spent a few minutes digesting all of the facts before deciding to make an offer. I put on my salesman’s hat and formulated a plan. What I needed to do was to sell them on the idea that they needed me as much as I needed them.

I went to the construction office on the property to look for the Project Manager. I found out that the man’s name was Howard Schau. The secretary sent me to an office in Westlake village, and there I was told that he had left for the day. It was suggested that I go to the field office at 9:00 the next morning. This gave me a little time to think the whole thing through, and refine my sales pitch!

I did catch up with Howard the next morning. I introduced myself and told him that I was interested in leasing ground. He immediately told me of his past experience with Miller and Bocalli, and expressed his reluctance to enter into a deal with anyone. I knew this was coming, so I played my ace right away. I told him of my financing arrangement with the bank, and guaranteed him that there would never be any liens against the property. I could tell that I had my foot in the door, so I pressed on. I proposed to pay $100 per acre for all the land that I deemed worthy of planting to tomatoes, and a lessor amount for any other crop. This would be paid half in advance, and half after harvest. I further proposed to double disc all the remaining land for $15 per acre, and to get rid of the tumbleweed mountain for a flat $300. My first rent payment was two or three times what I charged him for my work. I knew that being able to show his bosses a little income rather than a considerable expense for cleaning up the property would be appealing to him. Soon enough we had agreed on a deal. He had his secretary type up an agreement that we both signed. It was a good morning’s work! Howard and I had a long and mutually beneficial relationship.

The next thing I did was to arrange to get the TD9-B hauled to the ranch. Hauling the large tractors was one thing that I never did for myself. I don’t really know why I didn’t buy a tilt-bed trailer for this job. Next I moved the disc with my tool porter. In the process I found that one of the bearings on the disc had failed. That meant a trip to Oxnard for a replacement. Using the tool porter as a hoist and a long bar for leverage I was able to get the shaft with eight blades out from under the frame, replace the bearing, and put everything back together that afternoon. I started disking the next morning. The weeds were still green, so the disc did a good job. I should mention that all of this happened while Gerry was away on his extended trip to Canada to visit David and Susan.

When I offered to get rid of the tumbleweeds I didn’t have a clue about how I was going to do it. I didn’t think the Fire Dept. would let me burn them. My last resort would have been to hire someone with a hay baler, and hand feed the weeds into it. This would have been a very slow and tedious chore. I had seen Dickie Giesler burning weeds on another property nearby, so I asked him how he managed to get a burning permit. He said that what I should do was go to the Fire Station in Camarillo to ask for a permit. They would turn me down, but then I should go back a few days later and talk to a different Fireman. He said that little by little I could figure out what they wanted to hear and what they didn’t want to hear. The problem was that NO burning was allowed in the City Limits. I also figured out that they would be delighted to be rid of the tumbleweeds, as they were a fire hazard. Finally, on the third or fourth try, the Fireman said, "where you want to burn is outside the City limits, isn’t it?" Bingo! That was the key. I said I thought it was just outside. I got my permit, and was told to call in the day I wanted to burn to see if it was a burn day. They wanted a clear day, so that the smoke would rise, rather than hang in the air. A few days later I awoke to crystal clear air, and just the slightest hint of east wind. I figured that the Fire Dept. in Ventura, where burn days were designated, would not be aware of the east wind. I called the Fire Dept. in Camarillo and got clearance to burn. By the time I started lighting a fire at the east end of the tumbleweeds, the wind was blowing enough to carry the fire downwind through the entire stack of weeds. As the fire moved I followed behind to make certain that everything burned. It was all over in about twenty minutes! There was nothing left but ashes!

By the time I had finished the disking I had decided how much ground I would pay rent on. I gave Howard a statement of the work I had done, and a check for the rent, deducting what he owed me. He was pleased and I was pleased. I guess that’s the definition of a fair deal, isn’t it? Both parties were satisfied.

Because planting season was getting close, and I was working alone, I decided to make Ralph Roatcap a deal he couldn’t refuse. He was in the process of getting back into the tomato business. I told him he could have about sixty acres of the Leisure Village property for 10% of the crop; half the normal rent. He came to take a look at it, and decided he would take it. That was a relief to me. For me to farm it that first year, without Gerry, would have been tough.

Meanwhile, I got the other fields ready to plant. I think I had planted one or two of them before Gerry came home. We usually made planting a two-man operation; one driving and one tending the planters. Doing it alone just meant that I had to turn my head often to be sure the planters were doing their thing.

Gerry was talking some of going to Europe again, and possibly settling down in Ireland. I thought that it was time he committed himself to something, whether it was working or going to school. Since school didn’t seem to be a consideration, I suggested that he stay to work with me and that we do some farming together. That appealed to him. Over the years I have had some guilt feelings for having interfered in his life in this way. It’s something I don’t really believe a parent should do to an adult child. It all turned out well. Today he thanks me for what I did. He realizes that it really was time for him to commit to something. Obviously, time has proven that he committed to the right thing!

We decided to plant some rather sandy ground on the Leisure village property to banana squash. I bought some seed from Albert Beltramo and arranged to borrow his modified bean planter. Albert had been growing banana squash for much longer than the twenty or so years that I had known him, starting in San Fernando Valley. He sort of guided us through the entire planting, growing and harvest process. There was never a market for squash in the fall. The general practice was to put the squash in stacks of 20 or 30 right in the field, then cover them with vines to protect them from the sun. After we were finished with tomato harvest, I hired four people to stay and stack the squash. I think we started to sell it in December and January. That first year I paid all the expenses, then Gerry and I split those expenses and the income evenly. I don’t think either of us made any money, but Gerry was hooked! The following year he farmed on his own and worked for me at the same time. He bought a small used cultivating tractor for himself, and paid me for the use of the larger tractors and the tomato harvesting.

I was still in the learning process as far as growing the crop, but things were starting to fall into place. The pattern that I spoke of was becoming more evident, and the whole process more routine. I had a nice crop, maybe about 25 tons per acre. Also, the contract price of tomatoes was going up a little every year.

Ralph got a job harvesting for Mike Brucker, the son of Rip Brucker. Rip and Mike both farmed near me in Camarillo. Ralph only had one harvester prepared for working, so he asked me to bring my machine and crew to help out. We both worked there for several days. By the time we finished, the Mobil field was ready to harvest. Ralph and I made a deal for him to help me at the Mobil field in exchange for me helping him harvest his field at Leisure Village. We kept track of the tonnage and settled at the end of the season. I worked alone to harvest the two fields at the Doan ranch. As we were finishing Ralph’s field at Leisure Village, Howard Birkenshaw came by to ask Ralph to harvest for him. He had lined up someone else to do the job, but that someone couldn’t get there in time. I ended up taking my machine to Moorpark to help with that job. When that was done Ralph still had one very small job to do in Camarillo. He asked me if I would mind if he hired my crew to work on his machine for a couple of days. I talked to them, and they were happy to get the work. Obviously, Ralph had observed what I already knew; I had a very good group of people working for me. I made the statement many times over the years that I had the best crew in the county, and I still believe that to be true!

All in all, it was a very good year for me; better crop, better price, I did some custom harvest, and I made a little money from subleasing the Leisure Village field. I rewarded myself with a new ¾ ton IH pickup, tomato red, naturally! I think it cost me about $3500. Wow, what happened to the price of vehicles since then?

I settled accounts with Howard Schau for the first year. By then I had a better idea of what ground I would plant in tomatoes. To my surprise, there was really nothing wrong with most of the property. It seemed to grow good crops. The drawback was that it took lots of water if you tried to furrow irrigate, as Gus Ferro had done. We solved that problem by using sprinklers. So, for the following year, I paid the higher rent on almost all the property. I also bumped the rent up to $150 per acre. Howard seemed to be pleased with our arrangement.

For the following year, 1974, I thought it would be a good idea to use chicken manure on the Leisure Village ground, since it was rather sandy. I got in touch with another acquaintance from the Maulhardt days, Henry Luna. Henry had started as a young man with one small truck, loading and spreading steer manure by hand. As time went by, he got his own loader tractor, several spreader trucks, and finally a large truck and trailer to haul the material to the field. By this time the egg business in the county was very big, and the influx of Japanese vegetable growers created a demand for chicken manure. We decided to apply twelve cubic yards per acre. This would give me the sixty pounds of nitrogen that I wanted, and ample phosphate, as well as some trace minerals. We applied the manure in the fall, after plowing, subsoiling, disking and leveling. Then we used a springtooth harrow to cover the manure.

Those fields produced very well the next growing season. So well, in fact, that I decided to use only chicken manure on all the fields in the future.

I let Gerry farm some of the Leisure village ground. I took him to talk to Howard Schau so that he could lease directly from him. Over the years he grew tomatoes, Lima beans, broccoli and some hybrid sweetcorn seed for Associated Seed Growers. He probably grew other things that I’m not remembering. Limas were the only crop that did not produce well. I kept him on salary and gave him whatever time he needed for his own fields.

About this time I made a change in the way I got the fields weeded and thinned. I asked my friend Joe Molina to send me a few men that I could hire directly to do these chores. I figured that if I had the same crew for the entire season, under my supervision, that I could get better results. He brought me four men. One of them, Salvador, had a car for transportation. I spent lots of time with them the first day or two, then just checked with them once a day. This turned out to be a good move. I was getting consistently good work from them. I found enough other jobs to keep them busy until the last field was cleaned.

One of the worthwhile things they did was to pick up rocks. Most of the fields had some small rocks in them, from two to four inches in size. These rocks could cause lots of problems in the tomato harvester. They could damage the sickle, or lodge themselves between the frame and various moving parts. I asked Albert Beltramo if I could borrow a small two-wheel box trailer from him. He said that I could take the older of two, and keep it for my own. That’s what you call a bargain! The system was to put the trailer behind the little JD tractor and drive through the field. Three men walked behind, cleaning one row each, tossing rock into the trailer. When the trailer was full, it was backed up to a wash, or other designated area to be dumped. The hitch was fastened to the rear cultivator bar, so it could be raised up enough to make unloading fairly easy. This operation was performed just after the second cultivation. That way it was not likely that any more rocks would be brought to the surface. To my surprise and delight, this operation cost me less than ten dollars per acre. Every year there were fewer rocks to pick, and the harvest went much smoother.

I tried my best not to hire any illegals. For one thing I thought that those that had spent the time and effort to be legal should have priority. The other, more selfish, reason was that I did not want to loose my crew in the middle of a chore to "La Migra". I always paid above minimum wage, so all in all I never had any trouble finding people to work.

When it was time to irrigate I had Salvador and one other man help Gerry and me put out the pipe, and then they worked every afternoon to help Gerry move the sprinkler lines. When all the fields were clean of weeds and rocks, I let two or three of the men go. I kept Salvador to help out until we were through irrigating and harvesting.

One thing I remember very well that year. We had planted a 30-acre field at Leisure Village with rather marginal soil moisture. The seed came up nicely, and was about two or three inches high when we got a very hot east wind. Barbara and I were going to go to San Miguel for a week. Gerry and I drove to all the fields, and I told him what to do with each one. Some were to be watered, some weeded, some cultivated, etc. When we looked at the Leisure Village field all the little plants were lying on the hot ground. I told Gerry to just forget about this field. All our irrigation pipe was committed to other fields. Besides, by the time we could react it would probably be too late. When I looked at the field a week later I could not believe my eyes. The plants were a lush green and had grown two or three inches! The field produced a nice crop in the fall. I also remember Gerry’s first words when I got home. "Boy, am I glad to see you! I have been running in circles trying to do what you seem to do so easily!"

I had another conversation along those same lines a few years later. Staben Brothers farmed close to one of my ranches. They grew tomatoes, sweet corn and maybe other crops. They came to me one day to ask how I was able to do all that I did. They farmed less ground than I did, but they were working till dark every day, while I was in the PU headed home at 4:30. I had to think about the answer for a bit. "Well, for starters I’ve observed that the two of you spend lots of time arguing about what to do, and how to do it. Beyond that, the most important thing is to do everything at the right time. There is a time to cultivate. Too soon and you make a mess. Too late and you don’t kill the weeds. There is a time to weed, a time to irrigate, a time to do each job. If you want to do the job quickly and well, do it when it should be done! Before I go home in the afternoon I know what I am going to do the next day, so there is no time lost. Last, but not least, have the right tool for every job." A year later they did take part of my advice to heart; they split up and went their separate ways!

My daily routine was to get up at 6:00 AM, eat breakfast and be at the ranch by 7:00. As soon as I was certain that everyone else knew what was to be done I went to my own chore for the day. About 8:00 I headed for the coffee shop in Camarillo. If Gerry and I were working together I took him with me. Frank Gill was always there and a few others that I visited with. During harvest season I skipped breakfast at home, in order to be in the field early. I wanted to have everything ready when the crew arrived. I checked the oil in all the engines, started them, and hooked up at least one trailer. When the crew arrived all they had to do was climb on the machine and start down the row. When I was sure that all was going well I went to town for breakfast.

All the fields produced well that year. The price of tomatoes was moving up every year, so the combination of good price and good production made for the best year, by far, that I had up to that time.

I had one little mishap while we were harvesting the Mobil field. The harvester engine began to make a noise that I had heard before from one of Ralph’s machines. I knew it was the timing gears wearing out. The engine was a 134 cu. in. Ford. The hydraulic pump was driven by the camshaft, which in turn was driven by the timing gears. This arrangement worked fine for tractors, but Blackwelder put a much larger pump on the engine to run the hydraulics of the harvester. This put an extra load on the timing gears. Also, the engine was a little overloaded by the extra hydraulic pump that was added to run the sickle. Because of that I had decided to replace the engine with a Ford 172 at the end of the season. I called the Ford engine distributor in Long Beach to see what it would cost, and to find out if all the dimensions were the same, so that I could use the old radiator, clutch, etc. I was told that the two engines were totally interchangeable. By the time I got off the phone, the harvester was stopped at the far end of the field, and the crew was milling around. When I got there I found that the engine had quit entirely. The timing gears had failed and in the process snapped off the end of the camshaft.

Fortunately, it was a Friday afternoon, and we had nearly completed our last load for the day. I sent the load off to the inspection station and went back to the phone. To my dismay I found that the distributor did not have a Ford 172 in stock. Before I could panic completely they said that they did have a 192 that was also interchangeable. So much the better! I didn’t even know Ford made a 192. I arranged for someone to open the store for me at 8:00 the next morning. I was back in Camarillo before lunch and had the new engine installed by late afternoon. Our harvest schedule was to be off on Saturday and work a short day on Sunday. So Sunday morning we were ready to go back to work. Putting that larger engine in the harvester was one of the better things I ever did. The machine was now able to work in 3^rd gear, low range. For some reason it ran much smoother in 3^rd gear, low range than in 2^nd high range.

During the winter of 1974-75 I got the idea of buying a shop building. I had seen an add in one of the farm magazines for a metal building that I could put together myself, sort of like an erector set. When I talked to Howard about it, he said that it was OK with him, on the condition that I remove it when he needed the ground. We selected a place that would be the last to go into houses. He helped me get a permit from the city for a temporary farm building. I ordered a 22x50-foot metal building with a large sliding door at one end and a walk-in door on one side. I think it cost about $2500 delivered. I had befriended a building contractor that was doing some work at Leisure Village, and he helped me lay out, and set the concrete forms. We poured a four-inch slab, without footings or steel, so that it would be easier to remove when the time came. My contractor friend lined up a cement finisher to do the pour and finishing.

About that time I hired a friend of Gerry’s named Terry Lyon to work with us. His first task was to help us put up the building. Each truss came in four pieces, two posts and two roof-beams. These were bolted together on the floor, then raised and bolted to the floor. These trusses were of 1/8^th in. metal, formed and welded into a box shape for strength. They were not so heavy that we could not handle them, using ropes, bars and long poles to get them in place. They were spaced 10 feet apart, with 2-inch lightweight square tubing between them to hold the outside skin, which was corrugated metal with baked on light green paint for the sides and white for the roof. I think the job took about a week to complete. When the building was up, I got Edison to bring in power. We were next to Santa Rosa Rd, so they only had to set one pole. There was no charge for that; I just had to commit to use the service for three years. That’s something else that has changed drastically!

I had an electrician come out to wire the new shop with overhead lights, and outlets along the walls. I had a telephone line brought in. I think the whole job was about $3500, floor, building and wiring, not counting our labor. Meanwhile, Maulhardt Equip. had sold out to Gibbs International, and Gibbs was moving out of the old building. I was able to buy several wooden parts bins and a storage cabinet for next to nothing. I think I had at least six bins, each six feet wide, with twenty compartments in each bin. Those bins were used in the original Maulhardt building in downtown Oxnard, then moved to the new building where I worked. I still have one of them, along with the storage cabinet, in my shop here in Mariposa. The parts bin is at least seventy-five years old.

At a consignment store in Simi I bought a nice wooden desk for $20 and a swivel office chair for $5. A man that lived in Leisure Village used to walk out into the fields to visit once in a while. He gave me a very old dresser that served as a rodent proof place to store seed. That’s also in my shop today. I built a long wooden workbench on one wall of the work area. Across from that was a free standing welding table. So, the final layout of the shop was twenty feet of storage in one end, and thirty feet of work area at the end with the drive-in door. My desk was just to the left inside the walk-in door, with the dresser on the other side of the door. I felt as rich as a king!

The new shop allowed me to stock lots of spare parts. Having things on hand saved lots of running when repairs were needed. My three Pickups used the same water pump, so keeping a repair kit on hand was worthwhile. I also kept a water pump kit for all the IH tractors. They were very easy to install, and dirt-cheap. On the other hand, when I needed to replace the water pump on the John Deere, I had to buy a complete new pump, to the tune of about $150. Installing it was impossible without removing the radiator!

Work Area

During the following winter Frank Gill approached me with an interesting proposition. He wanted to form a joint venture to grow tomatoes on the Brewer Ranch. He proposed to have me do the farming, and make all decisions. I would use my equipment and bill him for half at custom rates. I would pay all the bills, and bill him monthly for half. The rent was $200 per acre, which we would split. The proceeds would be split down the middle. This seemed like a good deal for me. Most importantly, I would be in charge. Also I would make a little money on all of my equipment, including irrigation pipe. The ranch had a well, so water would be cheap. The arrangement worked out well. I billed Frank every month, and he paid me promptly. He also lived up to his agreement not to interfere with my judgement. That must have been hard for an old tomato grower like Frank!

I planted the Brewer ranch first in 1978, because it was far enough east of Camarillo to be quite a bit warmer, and beyond the coastal fog. Warm days mean warm soil, which means faster sprouting of the seed and faster overall growth. I think I planted all UC 92’s on that ranch. One reason for this was that they took about eight or ten days longer to mature than my old variety.

The growing season was pretty much routine, except for one little bump in the road. Gerry was getting discouraged with his financial situation. He was offered a job as field manager for Alfie, a newly formed produce company. Gerry had grown broccoli for them, and maybe some other winter crops. He felt that he would be better off with a good monthly income. He had fared better than I in the two rainy years, but I suspect he had not yet learned the financial discipline needed to stretch out over a full year income that comes all at one time. Whatever, I wished him well, and assured him that I would take care of his crop for the rest of the year. That turned out to be a promise I couldn’t keep, at least not through harvest.

Salvador had acquired a good grip of the irrigation, so he and his helper handled all that with some supervision. I had also trained him to drive some of the tractors. I should say that I tried to train him. As much as he wanted to be a tractor driver, he had no aptitude for it. He had no mechanical skill, and no "ear" for problems. I had to keep a pretty close watch when he was driving the crawlers.

On the Brewer Ranch the plants were doing very well. We irrigated twice with sprinklers. I was afraid they would not hold up until harvest without more water, but by then they were loaded with fruit. I decided to run water in the furrows for that third irrigation. The ranch had uniform fall, so that worked well. By the time we started harvest it was obvious that the crop was going to be very good. The first twenty-acre block picked over forty tons per acre. Of course it rained before we were finished with it. Three years in a row! All in the month of August! That was unheard of.

The rest of the ranch produced well, but we struggled some to harvest it. We dumped one load rejected for mold. Overall, Frank and I both did well on the Brewer Ranch. Next we moved to the Foster (Doan) Ranch.

Moving from field to field was a chore in itself. We had to remove the elevator that carried the fruit to the trucks. We used the tool porter to remove and haul it. The transfer case on the machine had to be shifted to high range. Even so, it only traveled about ten miles per hour. Without the elevator the machine was nearly fourteen feet wide. We just took off down the road with one pickup in front and another behind. I pulled the portable toilet behind my truck. I tried to do this job on Saturday, but it didn’t always work out.