The fruit left to rot

The intercalary chapter that gives the novel its title. Spring in California is beautiful, and behind the fruitfulness stand men of real skill — plant breeders, chemists, graftsmen with surgeons' hands. Then the prices come in. Cherries cannot be picked at a cent and a half a pound; prunes carpet the ground and rot; pears are left to fall; grapes go into vats with dirt and rot and are salvaged with sulphur into something that is not wine. Small growers are choked by debt and absorbed by the great owners, who own the canneries too. To hold prices up, oranges are sprayed with kerosene while hungry people watch, potatoes are thrown in the river under guard, pigs are killed and buried in quicklime. Men who can make new fruits cannot make a system by which the hungry may eat them. In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath grow heavy for the vintage.