284 TKANSACTIONS OF THE 



wheat raising; that varied production \Yill not succeed here; that 

 you cannot raise vineyards and orchards successfully, nor can you 

 raise stock in sufficient quantities to pay. I don't believe either of 

 these statements. I believe that most of the lands of this valley can 

 be utilized either for orchard or vineyard, or for successful stock 

 raising. In any deep soils I don't see why you can't raise beets to 

 feed your cattle, at least by limited irrigation, as well as we can in 

 the coast counties. There may be some localities where the soil is 

 too thin, and where wheat and barlej' are all that can be raised; but 

 Avhere you can raise wheat and barley, you can certainly raise hay, 

 and if you can make hay, j^ou can raise stock. Don't understand me 

 that I am trying to tell each of you what to do with your particular 

 farm. I fully understand that there are no two localities that are 

 exactly alike,xand that will successfullj^ produce the same grains or 

 the same fruits, but do know that even in this valley you will sooner 

 or later have to adopt the system that has been more recently adopted 

 in the Sonoma and Napa Valleys, Alameda and Santa Clara, and a 

 part of Sonoma County, by introducing a more varied production. 

 Where the native oak will grow the vine or the fruit tree will grow. 

 It is true you must understand what vine or what tree to plant. In 

 this valley I would not plant the kind of grapevines or attempt to 

 make the kind of wine that we make in Napa and Sonoma, nor would 

 I plant the same fruit .trees on the plains that I would plant there. 

 This is not necessary. You can find both vine and fruit trees that 

 will pay you quite as well as ours pay us there, and will grow equally 

 as luxuriant. 



SAN Joaquin's future wealth. 



Under this new system of canning and drying fruits California has 

 the world for a market, and the future wealth of the valley of the San 

 Joaquin will rest more on the number of boxes of fruit and casks of 

 wine and brandy it produces than in the number of the sacks of 

 wheat. And this is all the more certain because now we have to com- 

 pete with India with its cheap servile labor in raising small grains. 

 It is stated by a very distinguished authority that ordinary farm labor 

 in India can be obtained at from ten cents to twenty-five cents a day 

 to the man, and transportation is now so much cheaper from India to 

 Europe that it will be but a few years when if the ratio of increase of 

 production in India continues for the next ten years as it has the past 

 ten, then Liverpool will no longer be a market for our small grains, 

 and we will be compelled to adopt a more varied production whether 

 we wish to or not. It is my most profound conviction that the time 

 is fast approaching when the great wheat growers of this valley must 

 raise more cattle, more fruits, and less wheat if they hope to make 

 their farming enterprises pay. 



Those who plant vineyards and orchards now have better oppor- 

 tunities for success than those who planted them fifteen years ago, 

 because now the fruit grower has all the experience which the last 

 fifteen or twenty years have furnished to the people of this State. 

 We know better to-day what kinds of grapes, or what character of 

 fruits, are adaptable to the peculiar soils of the different localities of 

 this State; what the climate effects are upon these fruits. We know 

 better to-day where the fruits ripen more perfectly, and what kinds 

 of fruits are best to plant in such localities as San Joaquin. We 

 know that in Napa and Sonoma Counties we cannot successfully com- 



