282 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



But to return to my thought, that all our domesticated animals 

 and plants are trophies of man's sovereignty and creative skill. 

 The sheep in its natural state has coarse hair like that of goats. 

 The wild horse is of the mustang type and size. The wild hog 

 is a most formidable and ferocious beast, with an anatomy as 

 pronounced as that of a San Francisco car horse. What was the 

 potato in its natural state ? An acid, poisonous root. Go and 

 look at those " spuds " in the Pavilion and see what man has 

 made out of that unpromising, raw material. Man discovered, ages 

 ago, a mean grass, totally devoid of nutritive qualities, having a bitter 

 kernel like chess or cheat, but he trained that plebian cereal, until 

 to-day, as it rolls its billows of gold in harvest, we hail in wheat the 

 queen of plants and the staff of life. The apple, which to-day is 

 among fruit what the cow is among domestic animals, is descended 

 from the sour, knotty, wild crab, and to-day we have apples in Cali- 

 fornia golden as the fabled ones of the Hesperides, luscious and 

 inviting as the fruit that tempted Eve. A visiting Sir Knight, in 

 San Francisco, the other day was passing a fruit stand where some 

 extra large watermelons were exposed for sale. (If Adam and Eve 

 were colored people, as Professor Winch ell asserts, a watermelon was 

 probably the fruit that beguiled them.) Well, this Knight was of 

 a waggish turn, and so, with an air of disappointment, he said, point- 

 ing to the melons, "Are your apples no larger than this in California?" 

 "Apples ?" said the Italian lady from Cork, whom he addressed, 

 "apples? thim's huckleberries!" ■ -^ ' 



Then all our delicious grapes have been developed by human skill 

 from the wild grape of Europe, which is inferior to our California 

 wild grape, and speaking of grapes I don't think our California 

 grapes are done yet. The plums and pears and cherries you raise 

 hereabout are. But our peaches need a little more sunshine in them, 

 and when I look at our strawberries and our grapes I am like the 

 boarder who said to his landlady, "a little more strength in the tea, 

 ma'am, and a little less in the butter." And so I say a little more 

 sugar in our strawberries, a little less in our grapes! The excess of 

 sugar in California's grapes makes an excess of alcohol in her light 

 wines, and the excess of acid in our strawberries discounts them 

 terribly. But that will be remedied by and by. 



And now a closing word to the dignity of this pursuit. Well has 

 Emerson said: "We look upon the farmers with reverence and 

 respect, when we remember what powers and utilities he so meekly 

 wears." Plain in manner and dress, he would not shine in palaces, 

 but set down beside him the drawing-room dandy, who is only a 

 whiskered essence and an organized perfume, and the "dude" shriv- 

 els into nothingness while the son of the soil towers in manly stature 

 like one of the Homeric heroes. I know there is a tendency among 

 farmers' boys to look wistfully to the city or to the professions as 

 offering better inducements to honorable ambition, and their manual 

 labor seems to be the abhorrence of many. They will clean spittoons, 

 measure tape, take a third assistant clerkship in a junkshop, peddle 

 sewing machines or liver pads, rather than do honest hard work. 

 A farmer's boy wrote to Horace Greeley a few years ago asking his 

 advice about leaving the farm for a professional ^career, and received 

 the following answer: " Dear Sir: I judge by the number of lawsuits 

 and deaths that there are three times as many lawyers and doctors 

 as the country needs, and by the price of flour, butter, and beef not 



