SECOND DISTRICT AGRICULTURAL ASSOCIATION. 281 



whore only one ,2;re\v before is greater than a conqueror. He has cer- 

 tainly done something that is of advantage to the human race. Our 

 fathers were good, industrious people, but a farmer of one hundred 

 years ago would think he was on another ])lanet if he could come 

 back and see our present system of farming. What would one of 

 the i)atriots of 1776 have thought on seeing the header, or mower, or 

 reaper, or thrashing machine, or the combined header and thrasher 

 of this State? He simply would not have known what the instru- 

 ment was; ho would have taken it for an engine of destruction. It 

 is estimated that one man can now do just about four times the 

 amount of farming that a man could do one hundred years ago, and 

 do it much easier, and a great deal better. No country in the world 

 has better farming machinery than California, and very few if any 

 countries have as good. This is not boasting; it is simply the truth. 

 We don't say our people are more intelligent than other peoples, but 

 there is no question that in the department of agricultural machinery 

 we have more and better appliances than any other people. Although 

 it has hardly boon twenty-five years since we commenced to farm 

 generally throughout the State, and it has only been about twelve 

 to fifteen years since we commenced grape raising and fruit growing 

 in quantities, yet note the marvelous progress we have made in all 

 these departments of productive industry. This improvement is not 

 attributable to the fact that we have worked any harder than other 

 people, but it is attributable to the fact that in California a very intel- 

 ligent class of people have engaged in farming industries. The best 

 intelligence is necessary to successful farming; no man can guess 

 himself into prosperity. Sometimes a single idea is worth more than 

 a thousand strong arms. Whitney, who discovered the cotton gin, 

 was of more real value to the cotton industries of the South than all 

 the slave labor of the cotton States; the saving caused by that single 

 thought, illustrated by proper mechanical app)liances, revolutionized 

 the cotton industry, cheapened products, and benefited the world 

 more than we can estimate. This did not destroy labor; it ennobled 

 it, and gave to toil a higher plane of intelligence. So with McCor- 

 mack, who first pointed out how to cut grain by machinery, and 

 proved to the whole civilized world that from the days of the Pyra- 

 mids until now this work had been done wrong; that with half the 

 labor one man could cut more grain, and do it better, than eight or 

 ten men could do in the old way. This was but an illustration of 

 the principle that a high degree of intelligence is necessary for suc- 

 cess in farming; it was applying a new thought to old practices, and 

 a great thought it was, bringing the best intelligence to bear upon 

 the business in which you are engaged. It illustrated, in a most 

 marked degree, the difference between intelligent farming and farm- 

 ing by sheer brute force. Every grown man has muscle, but muscle 

 alone will not compete with brain power and muscle combined. So 

 with your combined header and thrasher. It is fast revolutionizing 

 the manner of harvesting in the wheat producing valleys of the State. 

 You are proud of it; so are we all. It is made in Stockton. This 

 illustrates the idea of brain power brought to the aid of muscle. I 

 do not mean that farmers can all be scholars, or that scholars, as such, 

 would make good farmers, but what I do mean is, that the farmer 

 should think about farming, and about the best farming, and that 

 he should do what the mechanic does, namely: imitate the best 

 mechanic, not the poorest work; visit fairs, compare products, ad- 



