Having purchased a lemon grove in California, Clara Merton arrives to take possession. The young foreman shows her about the grove. He shows her the care exercised by the employees to preserve the trees, always cutting, never plucking the lemons from the trees and the careful spraying of the trees to kill insects. Clara visits the packing house to arrange for the sale of her lemons and is taken through the various departments of the establishment. Time goes on and the foreman learns to love the pretty owner of the lemon grove and proposes marriage. But she loves her independence and refuses his offer and then discharges him from her employ. He seeks work at the packing house and is employed by the general manager in the sorting department. At the lemon grove the new foreman is persistently urging the pretty owner to become his wife. Finding that his plea is unavailing he takes her measuring rings and cuts a section from each, reducing the size. Soon complaints come from the packing house that her lemons are too small and at last the proprietor refuses to buy any more of her undersized fruit. The old foreman learns in the packing house of her predicament and asking for a day off visits her grove to investigate the cause. He finds the section cut from her rings by the new foreman and at once understands. He hurries to the owner and shows her what he has discovered. The new foreman comes up and learning that his ruse is discovered, decides to put distance between himself and the ranch before the old foreman can give him the bouncing he deserves. And the little ranch owner finds that the protecting love of her old foreman is vastly superior to her previous independence.