Many years ago when there was still a considerable amount of farming in southern California, we lived in south Orange County between two huge ranchos. To the north was the Irvine Ranch, and they had thousands of acres under till with all sorts of rotated crops from tear to year. One field had tomatoes, and the pickers and cleaners had gone through, and the field was ready for the plow, but there were thousands of tomatoes just laying on the ground, and there were a lot of the field hands and their families gathering the culls that were good enough to use but were going to go under the plow. Well, my Bride and her friend were passing by, and asked one of the hands if they thought it was ok for them - Mrs. Rr and friend - to pick up some tomatoes, too; lady said sure, why not? So they were out there collecting what Mrs. Rr said were some pretty good 'maters, and along comes the Sheriff and an Irvine Ranch Marshall, and told them they were going to arrest then for trespassing and theft. They protested, pointing out the other folks gathering fruit, and the nice Marshall just shook his head and told them it was a Ranch policy; they could leave what they had gathered, and head on down the road, but not to do that again. That field is now all industrial/commercial complexes.

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