STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



263 



TABLE, 



Showing the Annual Amount of Rain at Sacramento, in inches and tenths, the 

 Annual Assessment of Real and Personal Property in the State, and the An- 

 nual Receipts into the State Treasury, as collected upon the property thus 

 assessed, and all other sources, from 1850 to 1863, inclusive. 



The foregoing table exhibits the general increase of the State in ma- 

 terial wealth in a more reliable manner than any reports of our produc- 

 tions, as now made by the Assessors to the Surveyor-General. In the 

 actual assessment, every piece of property is looked at and valued, and 

 is represented in the above figures from year to year ; while the reports 

 of the productions to the Surveyor-General, as that officer remarks, are 

 regarded by many of the Assessors " as a useless task unnecessarily 

 imposed, and the}'' appear to think that a few figures, seemingly set 

 down almost at random, will suffice," and they are, therefore, very 

 incomplete and unreliable. 



By a glance at the above table it may also be seen to what extent the 

 prosperity of the State has heretofore been dependent on the seasons. 

 The valuation of the property, and the receipts into the State Treasury 

 dependent on that valuation, running high or low as the seasons have 

 been wet or dry — so that the table of rainfall has been as a barometer 

 to the State's prosperity. We have endeavored to show, in a preceding 

 article, under the head of " Comparative Climate and Grain Farming in 

 California," that the effect of the dry seasons upon the agricultural pros- 

 perity of the State may, to a very great extent, be overcome by adopting 

 a different system of cultivating the soil, and we would now call particu- 

 lar attention to the above table, as indicating in a very forcible manner 

 the extent of the direct and immediate interest the State has in provid- 

 ing the means for the collection and diffusion of correct and practical 

 information upon our agricultural and all other industrial pursuits. 



