134 Transactions of the 



of the valleys develop the saccharine matter in the grape, which by 

 fermentation is converted into alchohol. 



THE LANDS OPEN TO SETTLEMENT. . 



There is but one Spanish grant in all this region, the Fremont 

 grant, in Mariposa. The land, tlu'refore, can only be obtained from 

 the government in tracts of eighty and one hundred and sixty acres. 

 A monopoly of the land in large estates is consequently impossible. 

 The character of the country being of rolling and rounded hills pre- 

 vents the possibility of very large farms. Experiments luive shown 

 that the soil is more productive than the dry i)lains of the valley, 

 but of course it does not yield crops as largely as the deltas and bot- 

 tom lands of the rivers. It is certainly better and more i)roductive 

 than lands similarly situated in France, Switzerland, and Italy, 

 which now sustain a population of millions. Wiood is everywhere 

 to be found, and in this region north of Oroville there is an abund- 

 ance of water in the streams and sjirings not yet approi)riated. 

 The.se lands have remained open for settlement because, up to the 



f)resent time, sufficient government land could be found in the val- 

 ej's. The legislation by Congress has been, and still is, unfavorable 

 to their appropriation for agriculture. The river bars and Ijcnches 

 of this region originally contained the placer gold mines. Positive 

 legislation by Congress forbade their survey for many years after the 

 State was admitted into the Union. When surveys were ordered the 

 Land Department at Washington was so fearful tliat they would be 

 occupied by farmers to the injury of the miners, that more than one 

 million acres were reserved as mineral land. The placer mines of 

 these foot-hills have ceased to yield gold even at Chinese wages for 

 the past ten years, yet the Land Department at Washington con- 

 tinues t,he mineral reservation on these lands. The effect of this is 

 to increase the exi)ense of obtaining title from the government, and 

 thereb}'' the settlement of this region has l)een retarded. Where a 

 farmer settles on land that has been reserved as mineral by the Com- 

 missioner of the General Land Office, the expense has to lie borne 

 by the settlers of, showing by testimony that his farm contains no 

 mines, and that it is only valuable for agriculture. There arc two 

 million acres of these lands on which there is no mineral reserva- 

 tion, and which can be obtained by liomcstcad and preemption as 

 ch('ai)ly as were the lands in the valley. It cannot be but a few years 

 before the unwise policy of reserving lands as mineral, that in fact 

 are not mineral, will be abandoned, so that these lands can be 

 obtained by settlement, preemption, and homestead as cheaply as 

 other lands. As I have sliown, there are more than three million 

 acres of these lands open to settlement — fallow from the flood — wait- 

 ing for occupants; capable of supporting a i)()pulation of a hundred 

 thousand people, if they will but cultivate them ; situated in a .semi- 

 tropical climate, and in all the higher regions free from miasma. 

 One need not be a jirophet, nor the son of a i>roi)het, to foretell tliat 

 before many years the agriculture of California will become varied, 

 and cultivation will not be confined to one cereal. Then the foot- 

 hill region of the Sierra will be occupied by a prosperous and happy 

 rural population. 



