SECOND DISTRICT AGRICULTURAL ASSOCIATION. 501 



We did not want mere boom. The county was good enough without it, and 

 had merit that was far better than boom. The watermelons of Lodi were 

 alone sullieient to make the county as famous as Sonoma and Napa 

 Counties are for their wines, and what need be done is to make the facts 

 known to the world as those counties had done. Make the possibilities 

 known by showing facts accomplished. He spoke at length on the advan- 

 tages of irrigation, vast increase of resources resulting from it, and the law 

 under which it could be made a public work, and urged that no time be 

 lost in taking advantage of it. He would avoid statistics, because Califor- 

 nians were familiar with them, and eastern people would not believe them 

 without seeing the facts they were based upon. They were too great for 

 ordinary belief without experience, and were a familiar subject; he there- 

 fore closed by another glowing tribute to the county, whose future he 

 predicted would realize the fondest hopes of its people, for these hopes 

 hardly equaled the merits. 



