At the Base of Shasta. 295- 



them susceptible of reclamation from the wild dominion of nature. As for 

 the mountains, they have not yet been reclaimed, and I hope will never be. 

 They say that the lowlands, in the times of the mining fever, were covered 

 with such rank growths out of the fecund bosom of the earth as could not 

 be paralleled or imagined. A gentleman told me at Pasadena that he saw 

 that valley when it was covered with a growth of weeds so high that a brig- 

 ade of cavalry would have been swallowed up in the brake. Thus, mining.- 

 was everything. And the evening and the morning were the First Day. 



But, in course of time, a change swept over the industrial landscape. 

 It was found that another source of wealth, as golden as that of the hills, 

 existed in the soil. As the valleys were cleared of their weeds rich grasses 

 took their place, the succulence of which invited all them that chew the 

 cud to fill themselves with the juices and fibers of this tender vegetable life. 

 So came the cattle, and so came the sheep. Their name was legion— herds 

 here and herds there and herds everywhere. They multiplied to thousands. 

 They lay like shadows on the distant plain. They yielded all manner of 

 profit to the rancheros, who scarcely knew their own, for multitude. So 

 came the heyday of cattle-raising in the valley lands of California. It was 

 one of the greatest of harvests ; but, like many other of the rich things 

 which crown the industry and enterprise of man, it endured but for a season- 

 Not, indeed, that the resources upon which it was founded failed, not that 

 the products of the herd, yielding some sixty, some a hundred fold, were 

 less valuable than when the new industry was in its prime ; but the epoch 

 passed by natviral evolution into a new phase of industrial life. And the 

 evening and the morning were the Second Day. 



A third form of enterprise now made its appearance, promising, if pos- 

 sible, still greater rewards. It appears at the present day, through our clear 

 backsight of the situation, that the great fertility of the soil of these valleys 

 would have been one of the most patent facts, even to the first inhabitants ;. 

 but such was not the case. Adventurers ran pell-mell over the riches un- 

 der foot, to find the more glittering, but hardly more palpable, wealth of the 

 hills. Long before the beginning of the decline in the great stock interests 

 of California the third phase of industry had appeared in the cultivation of 

 the soil. The old Californians were at first dependent upon importation for 

 almost everything which they consumed. They produced nothing, and 

 purchased everything. The things eaten were a foreign product. Even 

 the meats, with the exception of game, which then abounded, were brought 

 from foreign markets. But, with the beating about of enterprise, the people 

 came at length to discover the wealth of the soil ; and here began the third 

 great era of the industrial life of the Pacific coast. It was farming on a large 

 scale. It is needless to say how great was the yield in this form of industry. 

 The leading products were wheat and barley and oats ; and all the cereals came 

 in the train. Then it was that fields, the vastness of which made the eye of 

 the beholder ache with the distance of their further borders, spread out on 

 every hand. The agricultural resources of the State became enormous, and 



