322 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



United States can obtain a fair return for their toil and capital; that 

 all over our beautiful country the conditions are favorable for finan- 

 cial success and for moral and social life, is not simply a borrowed 

 expression appropriated through the force of custom to do service 

 upon the present occasion, but we all recognize it as the plain and 

 simple language of truth and soberness. However, according to the 

 dispassionate judgment of those who are qualified to decide, no place 

 can offer greater inducements to those desiring to locate where life 

 may be enjoyed, than can this part of the Golden State. While it 

 may not be commendable to make invidious comparisons, nor to feel 

 unduly elated because fortune has smiled upon us, yet we may find 

 it beneficial to go away from home occasionally to mingle with other 

 people and to become somewhat familiar with other scenes and sur- 

 roundings. Thereby we shall be better prepared to estimate properly 

 the blessings that greet us every day at our very doors. Those who 

 have lived here and have gone away, either to visit or to remain, 

 have almost invariably returned sooner or later, with the conviction 

 firmly established that there are sufficient advantages here to render 

 it unnecessary for any one to seek elsewhere for that comfort, pros- 

 perity, and happiness which we are all striving to obtain. 



If we declare the truth when we affirm that our soil is fertile and 

 unexcelled, the climate is mild and delightful, the scenery is varied 

 and beautiful, the condition of society is exceptionally good, and that 

 all of our industrial interests are prosperous, we may be pardoned, 

 certainly, if we appear somewhat proud of our possessions; we shall 

 not be condemned if we manifest an unusual interest in such an 

 exhibition of our resources as we are permitted to behold to-day. It 

 may fairly be questioned, notwithstanding the varied means of 

 information, whether even our own people be conscious of the vast 

 stores of wealth that lie concealed in our soil, waiting the hand of 

 industry to develop them. We know that away from home very 

 erroneous ideas are entertained concerning us. 



Last Summer, while visiting in our sister State, on the north, I 

 frequently expressed my admiration for the verdant fields, the limpid 

 streams, the magnificent forests, and the pleasing alternation of 

 mountain and valley, always present there to charm the eye of the 

 beholder. I witnessed, with pleasure, the evidences of progress on 

 every hand. My friends said that when they were connected by iron 

 bands with the East and with California, the State of Oregon would 

 begin, with great promise, the race for that distinction among the 

 States to which she is naturally entitled. While acknowledging that 

 her resources are inexhaustible, and that her prospects are undim- 

 med by any indication of adversity, I mildly suggested that the 

 prevalent opinion of the superabundance of rain in Oregon would 

 have a tendency to enable California to maintain for all time to come 

 her acquired superiority in population and wealth. They assailed 

 my intimation with good-natured raillery, and declared that an occa- 

 sional superfiuity of rain is decidedly preferable to our periodical 

 droughts. From the opinions of those living at a distance you would 

 conclude that our State is at times a veritable Sahara. They do not 

 appear to realize or to know that there is a county here large enough 

 for an empire, in whose history a failure of cereals is a thing entirely 

 unknown. Nor do they apparently understand that if other parts of 

 the State were to fail to produce a single vegetable product, we could, 

 from our abundance, easily supply all the physical wants of our 



