STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 179 



namely, the dryness of the harvest season. There is no other wheat 

 country, in or out of the United States, where the entire absence of 

 humidity can be counted upon with absolute certainty. Here, how- 

 ever, we know that from June to October we can rely with full confi- 

 dence upon uninterruptedly dry weather, and that our harvests 

 will be gathered without encountering any of those dangers and 

 injuries which constantly befall the harvests even of our Western 

 States. And we think Mr. Larue is right in saying that this one fact 

 marks California as a natural wheat-producing region, and as one 

 whaSi will always be found the best country in the world for the 

 cultivation of that staple. This argument is in complete harmony 

 with modern philosophy, moreover. It is the principle of adapta- 

 tion to environment, which underlies the most important and sug- 

 gestive deductions of Darwin and his school. Nature has always 

 proceeded thus in the evolution of her successful species of genera, 

 and man can never be so sure of success as when he imitates the 

 processes of nature. We arp glad to see that Mr. Larue takes a broad 

 and sound view of the tendencies of labor-saving machinery, and 

 that he does not fall into the errors which are so easy in this connec- 

 tion, of apprehending the expulsion of labor from wage-earning 

 industries through the rapid diminution in the demand for manual 

 help in agricultural occupations. He is undoubtedly right in assum- 

 ing that the multiplication of labor-saving machines is always, and 

 necessarily, to the advantage of labor, since it results in the produc- 

 tion of new capital, and the consequent development of new wants, 

 which call for an increased labor supply under more favorable con- 

 ditions. As the laborer is driven from the severe toil of the harvest 

 field, in fact, fresh occupations which offer him better wages for less 

 exhausting work, are thrown open to him. Every labor-saving 

 invention, rightly viewed, is a new link in the chain of progress 

 which is lifting the masses of men above merely servile employ- 

 ments, and affording opportunities for the development and cultiva- 

 tion of their intellectual faculties. And as the life of a democratic 

 society must ultimately depend upon the intelligence of its majority, 

 so it is for the highest good of such a society that invention shall 

 proceed even with leaps and bounds; nor is there anything to be 

 apprehended by the working classes from the most complete substi- 

 tution of steel and steam for nerve and muscle. 



Mr. Larue completes his interesting contribution to this discussion 

 of our agricultural future by glancing at the important changes in 

 transportation which the completion of the Southern Pacific Rail- 

 road will bring. He shows that the road in question promises to 

 settle the question of California's destiny as a permanent wheat- 

 growing State, by removing the sole remaining drawback to her cli- 

 matic advantages. This will be done by opening a route through 

 which our wheat can be put down at Liverpool after a journey of 

 from fifteen to twenty-one days, instead of the four or five months of 

 the present system. It is needless to dwell upon the magnitude of 

 the changes which this improvement in transportation must involve, 

 but it will be apparent to all who read Mr. Larue's address with the 

 care its merit deserves, that his conception of the great Pacific city 

 of the future, seated on the Straits of Carquinez, has better founda- 

 tion in sober fact and just inference than many a prediction which 

 finds acceptance on a much slenderer basis of reason. 



