job. This building was thirteen stories high and one of the largest in L.A. at the time. 

I had Daisy join me in L.A. for a week and we went north into Oregon on the way home, visited a whaling station, and saw Sid Wallace and family at Redding, California. I wanted to be home for my gas station law suit, but there was no need to hurry. 

In Dec. '50 Daisy and I went to Texas (McAllen) and bought an 11 acre orange and grapefruit orchard. We were attracted there by a friend. We drove to Dallas in two days and stayed overnight at Pool's (Bob). Next day we flew in Pool's plane to McAllen, about 500 miles, where Bob's father R.F. Pool Jr. was selling groves for a Texan Land Co. We stayed at the clubhouse three days and were toted all over the place. To the Gulf Coast for seafood dinner, Brownsville, across the border to Mexican night shows and looking at and being indoctrinated with the citrus business. The weather was delightful, the hosts generous, and the prey (us) gullible, and we took the hook and paid $11,000 for a ten acre grove, half down and the other half in a year. We arranged for Cross Care Co. to care for our grove for $5.00 per month per acre, then we came home. Bob's father flew us to Dallas and then we drove home, enthused and about to become rich. 

The grove we bought were young trees about 3 1/2 years old, about half oranges, mostly Valencia, and about half Ruby Red grapefruit. 

When new trees are planted they are banked high all around every fall to protect the young trees against freeze. If it should freeze, the buds that are covered with dirt will sprout leaves and branches, the top wood that has been killed by the freeze is pruned away, and the tree starts over again. 

About a month after we bought our grove, there occurred a very severe freeze which killed the trees clear down to the bank of dirt, thus setting it back a couple of years, plus killing some trees. When we returned a year later the trees looked terrible. The grove was half paid for -- $5500 paid, $5500 yet to pay. The grove was not worth what we still owed on it, but we paid anyway. Sometimes I have been too stubborn for my own good. I had seen freeze outs and crop failures all my life and wasn't about to give up. If I had given up I would have saved a lot of money (wasted) but on the second trip I bought six acres more out by Hargil, thus compounding my mistake. 

We had these groves ten or eleven years. We traded the six acres at Hargil for five acres in Texan Gardens, which was closer to our 11 acre grove. 

In all the years we had the groves I don't think we ever sold enough fruit any year to pay expenses, but we always lived in the hope that "next year" things would be better. We really enjoyed going down there every winter, get in the sun, and bring a load of fruit home.

It was really a delightful trip each year and we really enjoyed it, but it was just too expensive. I have figured that we sent $25,000 more to Texas than we ever received. 

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