STATE AOHICULTUHAL SOCIETY. L'.",l 



AN ADDRESS 



DELIVERED AT THE BUTTE COUNTY CITRUS FAIR, THURSDAY, DECEM- 

 BER 22, 1887. 



By Hon. C. S. Young, of Reno, Nevada. 



A few hours ago, on my way to this Fair, I passed over the deep snow 

 banks on the Sierras. Let it be remembered, too, that now we stand within 

 a few miles — within seeing distance — of frozen gorges and snow-clad hills. 

 Dropped as we, some of your visitors, have been, from Sierra's icy moun- 

 tains into the presence of these summer scenes and these golden fruits, we 

 seem to have realized golden visions and romantic dreams, a true account 

 of which would read to our eastern friends like a fairy tale. 



The Golden State is indeed golden. The sands which attracted hither 

 the argonauts of '49, were for a time transformed into the yellow money 

 of the ancients, later into fields of golden grain, and now rapidly are trans- 

 forming into orchards of golden fruits. The land of the Montezumas, 

 whose civilization had over it a dismal cloud and around it a rayless bor- 

 der, now supports a new civilization whose sky is sunshine and whose every 

 prospect is tinged with the golden hues of hope. Auspicious hope! In the 

 sweet gardens around the old mining camps grow not only wreaths for each 

 toil, but golden fruits out from the golden sands. 



But in all this stretch of country, famed in romance, from San Diego 

 to Siskiyou, there are no such golden views as to-night at Oroville, and 

 under this canvas tent. Why, I learn myself, for the first time, what 

 means a Citrus Fair. Here, of course, I expected to find fair women and 

 brave men, for I have met the argonauts and other representatives of Oro- 

 ville all over the Pacific Slope as well as east of the Mississippi. I did 

 not expect to see, however, made out of golden fruits, a dwelling cottage, 

 church of worship, candlestick, door, pyramid, bell, chair, wagon, wheel- 

 barrow, hammock, '49er's complete outfit, beehive, harp, and horn of 

 plenty, yet I find more; I find this immense auditorium, with its numer- 

 ous artistic figures transmuted into one golden view, the like of which was 

 never suggested to the alchemist, even in his most fanciful dreams. Within 

 the past few years I have crossed the continent many times, visited, for the 

 purpose of sightseeing, every section of this country, New England, the 

 New South, and the New Northwest, but to me the newest and grandest 

 of all sights in nature and art combined which I have ever seen is the first 

 Butte County Citrus Fair. 



Under such a clear December sky, in such a summer clime as this, and 

 in the presence of such golden fruits as these on which our eyes this mo- 

 ment feast, who could say that California does not merit the world's golden 

 opinions, and Oroville the cognomen of the "Gem of the Foothills?" 



You may talk about the Corcoran Art Gallery, the Boston Art Gallery, 

 and all other galleries, but transport such an art gallery of fruit as this, 

 with a section of such climate and surrounding natural scenery as is here 



