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we may judge by the experience, of other and less favored lands, it 

 could easily support a population of thirty millions. 



Take Spain, for instance. The area of that country is about the 

 same as of California. The exact figures are about one hundred and 

 ninety-five thousand seven hundred and seventy -four square miles; 

 of this only fifty-three per cent, of the soil is productive, and that is 

 not fertile. Yet that country supports a population which in 1870 

 numbered over sixteen millions, and it is said that under the Romans 

 it had a population as high as sixty millions; even as late as the tenth 

 century the number is given at twenty-four millions. After retro- 

 grading for centuries, the agriculture of the country has been improv- 

 ing of late years, and the population is again on the increase. Spain 

 has not so good a climate as this State, nor is she so favorably located 

 in a commercial point of view. In Italy there are only one hundred 

 and fourteen thousand eight hundred and fifty square miles, and the 

 population in 1871 was nearly twenty-seven millions of people; only 

 forty-eight per cent, of the soil of Italy is arable, and the climate, 

 though salubrious in portions of the country, is thus described by a 

 standard authority: "In Summer a burning heat, unrelieved by 

 refreshing showers, withers all vegetation, parches the ground, and 

 imparts to the landscape a glowing, brownish tint. _ In many places 

 a subterranean heat periodically sends forth noxious gases. The 

 lagoons and marshes, which border the coast, generate poisonous 

 miasmata. Besides all this, legions of noxious insects fill the air and 

 infest the dwellings." Yet such a country was the seat of empire 

 when Rome ruled the world. It was that climate and that soil from 

 which Csesar and his conquering legions came forth to power and 

 renown. It was there that Cicero prepared his graceful orations, 

 that the great poets and philosophers lived, that the imperishable 

 principles of the Roman law were formed, by means of which, even 

 yet Rome continues in great part to govern the civilized world, for 

 very much of our law is borrowed bodily, or with slight change, from 

 that source. How much more genial is the climate of our State. 

 We are never troubled with volcanic eruptions, although we have all 

 the benefits of the mild Italian atmosphere. There is scarcely an 

 acre of marsh land or of desert that we may not reclaim. And we 

 have forty-seven millions of acres more than Italy. Who can con- 

 template, without emotion, the wonderful possibilities before us? 

 What would this State be with twenty-four millions of people, or even 

 ten millions? The time is sure to come when that will be our con- 

 dition. 



The star of the empire has moved westward till it can move west- 

 ward no further. The broad Pacific places the limit to its progress, 

 and there is nothing left now but to develop what has already been 

 obtained by the grand army of occupation and progress. _ With such 

 a favorable climate, a good soil, and a fortunate commercial location, 

 the future population of this State ought to be the most enlightened, 

 the most active, energetic, and free people in the world. I have said 

 nothing of the inexhaustible wealth of our mines of gold, silver, cop- 

 per, iron, coal, and other precious metals, which is such a powerful 

 factor in the progress of a nation's greatness; nor have I referred to 

 the great manufactures, with their improved machinery of modern 

 times. With these taken into consideration, the results of the future 

 are still more difficult to estimate. We do not refer to this ina boast- 

 ful spirit, but to impress upon each of us the vast responsibility we, 



