THIRD DISTRICT AGRICULTURAL ASSOCIATION. 267 



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adapted to one does not suit the other. Then the foothill counties 

 of the Sierra Nevadas, and the coast-range counties, constituting the 

 eastern and western sections of the central part of the State, are 

 grouped into two districts; and while these districts embrace the 

 great wine-producing sections of the State, the climate and soils of 

 each are so different that varieties of grapes peculiarly adapted to 

 wine-making in one district are not well adapted to the other, and 

 the general management of the vineyard and manipulation of the 

 wines of one district are required to be different from their manage- 

 ment and treatment in the other. The central coast-range district 

 embraces also the great dairy section of the State, and the dairy 

 industries are carried on quite extensively in the Sierra foothills; 

 but here, again, the management of this industry in the former dis- 

 trict is quite different from the management required for the same 

 industry in the latter. In Sonoma and Marin the butter-making sea- 

 son commences in February, and continues to June and July, while 

 in El Dorado, Placer, and Amador it does not commence till May, 

 and lasts till the snow drives the dairies from the high mountain 

 pastures into the valleys below. 



The same diversity of soil, and climate, and products, is to be 

 found in the districts located on the bay, in the Santa Clara and 

 Salinas Valleys, while the climate, soil, and products of the districts 

 located at the extreme south of the State differ from the climate, soil, 

 and products of the extreme north almost as widely as the climate, 

 soil, and productions of Italy differ from those of Norway and 

 Sweden, or of Florida from that of Maine. 



Enough has been stated to show, that in dividing the State into 

 agricultural districts, the dictates and suggestions of nature have 

 been followed in fixing the lines and boundaries. If in the future 

 it shall be deemed expedient to establish experimental stations over 

 the State on the Germanic plan, the different agricultural districts 

 will be very proper sections for their location, and the District 

 Boards of Agriculture will be the proper authorities to take the 

 general management of them. The experimental stations in Ger- 

 many have been the principal agencies through which German 

 agriculture has been brought to its high standard of perfection, 

 increasing the annual production, and keeping up the great fertility 

 of the soil. Similar stations in France have made French agricul- 

 ture the most elastic and productive known in the world. These 

 facts are suggestive of what such stations might bring about in each 

 agricultural district in this State. At present, the District Boards of 

 Agriculture are expected to encourage and stimulate local industries 

 by collecting and disseminating among their people generally the 

 lessons and practices learned and followed by the more successful 

 stock breeders, agriculturists, horticulturists, vine growers and wine 

 makers, mechanics and manufacturers, not only of their own dis- 

 tricts, but of the State, nation, and the world. Experience in all 

 countries and in all ages since the era of industrial improvement 

 began, has proven that industrial fairs, properly conducted, are 

 among the most efficient means of accomplishing these objects. 

 These fairs present practical facts to the eye, and fix practical reasons 

 in the mind. They are practical object-teaching schools, open alike 

 to the rich and the poor; the high and the low; the learned and the 

 unlearned; the young and the old. 



Their language is universal. It is written in neither Hebrew, 



