Beauty Ranch

In 1905, London began purchasing property that became the Beauty Ranch. It had been farmed by homesteaders, and later became the Kohler-Frohling Winery. When Jack bought the land, the soil was worn out. After writing each morning, he turned to ranch management. He read the latest agricultural bulletins, consulted with the scientists at the University of California at Davis, and with Luther Burbank in Santa Rosa. He developed a vision of sustainable farming, where ranch materials recycled and as few resources as possible came from off site. He terraced the hillsides to lessen erosion, dammed a creek to provide gravity-fed irrigation, and used the manure from his livestock as fertilizer. He had a good eye for breeding, and won medals at the California State Fair for his animal husbandry. London's vision was prescient, but California agriculture was dominated by big business, and only today is his alternate model understood to have considerable benefits. A section of the ranch remains under grape cultivation for wine today. Larger versions of some of these photographs are available at FreeLargePhotos.com.

Farm buildings		Smooth Italian crafted masonry
Manure storage barn	Rough Chinese crafted masonry	The Cottage where Charmian and Jack lived.
Jack London vinyard	Rear of Cottage	Jack's bedroom view
	Oak outside Jack's den
Carriage house ruins	Vinyard	Pig Palace
	Pig Palace	Pig Palace
Burbank's "spineless" cactus