266 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



Among the articles which show the greatest increase of export value, 

 will be noticed copper ore, wool, and wine. 



The copper raining business of our State is but in its infancy, yet the 

 respectable value and rapid increase of our annual exports foreshadow 

 for it a leading position in our export trade, and the extensive prepara- 

 tions for smelting the ores within our State shows the confidence of our 

 people in the future importance of this branch of mining. 



In addition to the value of wool exported, it may be remarked that 

 two establishments at San Francisco — the Mission Mills and San Fran- 

 cisco Company's Factory — have purchased for their own manufacture 

 this year two million and fifty thousand pounds, and there is estimated 

 to be five hundred thousand pounds still in the country. 



While our commercial transactions show a rapid increase in the 

 exports of native wines, they also show a corresponding decrease of 

 imports of foreign wines ; from which it is seen that we are not only 

 supplying an increasing proportion of an increasing home consumption, 

 but are also answering a largely and rapidly increasing foreign demand; 

 facts going to prove, what had been generally remarked by those inter- 

 ested in the matter, that our native wines are in growing favor, both for 

 home and foreign consumption. The quality is generally approved, age 

 only being wanted. Our product is rapidly increasing, and will soon 

 assume such proportions as will enable us to supply the entire demand 

 for home consumption, and largely increase our export trade — a con- 

 summation much to be desired for two very important reasons : 



First — Because it will, to that extent, check the export of our gold 

 and silver, and put it in circulation among our own people, thus contrib- 

 uting to the comforts of the people themselves, and enhancing the taxa- 

 ble property of the State. 



Second — Because it will contribute much to the health and temperance 

 habits of our people. 



It is truthfully and timely remarked by our Superintendent of the 

 National Census Bureau, in his preliminary report of the eighth census, 

 while speaking of the product of wines in the United States, that " more 

 than four million dollars was paid by citizens of the United States, in 

 eighteen hundred and fifty-nine, for imported wines. The amount paid 

 by consumers for a fictitious homemade article, it is perhaps impossible 

 to ascertain. A good native wine may and should at once take the place 

 -of the spurious article, and, in a few years, of -a large part of the im- 

 ported. This is the more desirable, inasmuch as the disease which so 

 seriously affects the vineyards of Europe greatly diminishes the quan- 

 tity and increases the price of good wine, and at the same time tempts 

 producers to practice extensive adulterations. Nothing will effect a sub- 

 stantial temperance reform so certainly and speedily as the production 

 of good wines, in such quantity as to place them within the means of 

 the poor as well as the rich ; and every man who plants a vine will be a 

 useful co-operator in the beneficent work of relieving the country from 

 the evils of intemperance, by the substitution of a healthy beverage for 

 the various forms of poisons which take the name of spirits, and concen- 

 trate and diffuse misery over the land." 



The following table shows the destination of the above exports, and 

 the quantity shipped to each place or country. One of the most striking 

 features noticeable is the certain and stead}*- decline of our exports to 

 Great Britain and Australia, and the no less steady increase to our At- 

 lantic ports, to the coastwise countries north and south of us, and more 

 especially the rapid increase to China. The latter fact presents a pow- 



