EIGHTH DISTRICT AGRICULTURAL ASSOCIATION. 417 



talents, and they are increasing this nnniber every year. If tlie coast 

 and the mountains ran, on their side of the continent, as they do on 

 tliis, they would get no kSummer rains and no cotton. And if the 

 Sierra Nevada and the Rocky Mountains could be leveled, we would 

 have rain in Summer here in California. 



But we have our resources and advantages as well as they. We 

 have a shielded, protected climate. The mountains keep back from 

 us that cokl wind from the northeast; and they keep avyay from us 

 that deadly disease, that scourge of the northeastern part of the United 

 States, consumption. Then, we have dry harvests. The abundant 

 rains of Winter carry througli to ripening the grain crops; and, gath- 

 ered in a dm condition, it will endure a long sea voyage, which is the 

 cheapest transportation. 



Shielded from the northeasters, our fruit trees are not killed in 

 W^inter. We can dispense with the Summer showers while we have 

 such abundance of irrigating water from the mountains. We have 

 better control of them than eastern people have of the clouds of Sum- 

 mer. In that country it does not always rain just when people want it. 

 Then we have a clear sky and a bright warm sun, which colors, and 

 sweetens, and flavors our fruits. Then, we have the cool mountains 

 on the east, and on the west that greatest of oceans, cool in Summer 

 and warm in Winter, which things give us our equable climate. In 

 Summer, our fruit trees do not wilt; the air is always cool (in the 

 shade), while the light and heat ripen our fruits; and in Winter the 

 trees are not frozen. 



We want cotton goods from the east, though we have plenty of 

 wool, but they want our fruit. The more they get of it the more 

 they want it. They have been wholly unacquainted with fruit 

 raised under these favorable conditions. In size it seems to them 

 fabulous; in flavor it is delicious. It cannot be produced elsewhere. 

 El Dorado County is in the heart of this flne fruit region. The east 

 cannot equal it. It requires the mountains and the ocean and the 

 soil and the sun to cause such fruit to grow and ripen. The possi- 

 bilities of this favored region will become more and more the wonder 

 of our country. With care in the cultivation, and in gathering and 

 preparing for the markets, the flne fruits of this region, they will 

 always command a premium price in eastern cities. Let it be im- 

 pressed upon our farmers that they can defy competition in this line 

 of business, just as the southeast can defy competition in cotton. No 

 other part of the United States can produce the fruits which can be 

 produced in abundance here. Grapes, plums, prunes, they can't 

 raise, and other fruits raised in the east have an acidity which is 

 taken away by our more sunny clime. Water and sunshine come at 

 the same time. 



One cause which hinders the rapid settlement of the fruit regions 

 of California, by immigration from the east, is these great diff"erences 

 in the conditions of the country. The eastern farmer is not accus- 

 tomed to such conditions and such a manner of farming. Coming 

 to California is like going to a foreign country for an eastern man. 

 And the farmer must needs learn the business; hence this region 

 will All up with population more slowly, but it will All up surely, for 

 the people all over the United States like the taste of what can be 



raised here. Our canned fruits and our dried fruits, and by rapid 



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