- Spring in California is prettier than just about anything you can imagine. It's a paradise. The state grows full and rich with fruit.
- There are blossoms everywhere.
- Farmers are like surgeons, like artists. They know how to cultivate the land, to watch for disease, to graft trees, to nurture their produce.
- But the economy is so poor, that 40 five-pound barrels of pears sell for a mere $5.
- The farmers with small farms can't make a profit, can't afford to give their food away.
- Meanwhile, thousands of people are starving all across California.
- Landowners spray kerosene on the oranges so that people won't steal them.
- All over California, beautiful food is rotting.
- All over California, people are dying from hunger.
- There is a "growing wrath" among the people; in their souls "the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy" (25.19).