STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 197 



mighty ocean by large and substantial dykes, and it would be saying but 

 little for the skill of our civil engineers and the industry of our people to 

 suggest that they cannot protect our low lands from the waters of the 

 streams which flow towards the sea and there are lost in the vastness of 

 those great ocean waves from which Holland protects her lands. 



We have, then, the food-producing soil, which Buckle claims is requisite 

 for national greatness. We have also a climate unequaled for its mildness 

 and unsurpassed for its salubrity. In summer, along the coast and for one 

 hundred miles and more inland, the heat of the sun is tempered by the 

 almost constant ocean-cooled westerly winds, while in the valleys near the 

 mountains, when the sun has veiled his brightness behind the cresting 

 waves of the Pacific, the cool air descends from the mountain summit and 

 drives the sun-warmed air of the valleys up, to mingle with the higher 

 atmosphere above. Our nights are almost always delightfully cool, and 

 sunstroke is seldom experienced in the climate of California. 



I might speak of the mineral and timber wealth of this State; our quick- 

 silver mines may yet rival those of Spain; our iron ores, only in part devel- 

 oped, may yet equal those of Pennsylvania. We have petroleum, and 

 illuminating natural gas, and the great mother lodes of gold-bearing quartz, 

 which traverse this State from north to south, the exploration and devel- 

 opment of which are in a measure but commenced, will yield for ages gold, 

 surpassing in fineness and quantity that of the famed mines of Ophir, 

 which furnished the golden vessels and ornaments which adorned the 

 temple built by Solomon for the worship of the living God; and the 

 cedars of Lebanon are surpassed by the redwoods of California. The 

 mighty trees of these forests, almost awe-inspiring from their magnitude, 

 and towering high heavenward, might well be deemed pillars supporting 

 the azure vault above — Nature's fitting temple for the worship of Nature's 

 God. 



California has all the natural physical aspects for inspiring greatness. 

 Her broad valleys, her snow-capped mountains, her deep ravines, her tow- 

 ering precipices over which leap the waters of her streams, forming cas- 

 cades and waterfalls many hundreds of feet high, give man enlarged views 

 of Nature's greatness, and inspire him with the desire to attain greatness 

 for himself. 



With all these natural advantages the inquiry is suggested: Why the 

 increase of California in population has been slow in comparison to that of 

 other States in the Union? A brief consideration of the circumstances 

 connected with the settlement of California since its admission into the 

 American Union, will afford a solution to this inquiry. California was a 

 long distance from the older and more populous States of the Union; the 

 expense necessarily incurred in emigrating from those States here would be 

 sufficient to procure for the emigrant a comfortable home in the nearer 

 Western States. The possibilities for a great agricultural State were then 

 unknown even to Californians themselves. The known dry summers of 

 California — no rains of any amount from April until November — naturally 

 induced residents east of the Rocky Mountains to believe that the soil of 

 California was incapable of profitable cultivation; and the inhabitants of 

 the Northern and Eastern States, where frost reigned king during the win- 

 ter months, were slow to believe that in the same latitude, on the Pacific 

 Coast, land could be cultivated during the winter season. 



An overland trip at that time, from the Mississippi to Sacramento, con- 

 sumed the spring, the winter, and the autumn, and a removal to California 

 was then an apparent severing of ties, of family, of kindred, and of old 

 friendships. The title to the soil here was then uncertain; the settler who 



