EIGHTH DISTRICT AGRICULTURAL ASSOCIATION. 439 



ADDRIiSS 



DELIVERED BY E. W. MASLIN, ESQ., OF SACRAMENTO, AT THE FOURTEENTH 

 ANNUAL FAIR OF THE EL DORADO DISTRICT AGRICULTURAL ASSO- 

 CIATION, NO. 8, AT GRASS VALLEY, SEPTEMBER 5, 1884. 



THE SIERRA EOOTHILLS — SOIL AND CLIMATE AND 

 ADAPTATION TO FRUIT AND GRAPE CULTURE. 



Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: An agricultural address 

 is a very pleasing production. It is rarely listened to and more rarely 

 read. A few lines from Virgil, some happy quotations, the usual 

 assertion, notwithstanding that Cain was a farmer, that "agriculture 

 is the base of civilization," a little advice to farmers, some poetry at 

 the close, and the thing is done. When I received the invitation to 

 address you, I began to collect my quotations and poetry, but a gentle 

 hint from one of your Directors, who is a practical farmer, that such 

 an address wonld not be tolerated, constrained me to take the path 

 indicated by him, and if I am tedious, I intend to lay the blame 

 upon him, for I fear that, before I close, you will find I have only 

 told you what you already know. 



I therefore beg your indulgence for the few facts which I shall lay 

 before you, premising that they were hastily gathered amid the 

 engrossing cares of my official duties, which at this time are espec- 

 ially onerous. 



I think myself happy to appear before you to-day, among so many 

 of the friends of my boyhood. I shall be much more happy if I can 

 say anything which shall encourage you to renewed efforts to place 

 this district, and especially this county, in the van of material prog- 

 ress. 



More than thirty-three years ago I set foot here, a beardless boy. 

 All was then excitement and life. I have lived to see three of the 

 then, and for more than a decade, most populous and wealthy coun- 

 ties of the State — El Dorado, Placer, and Nevada — decline until they 

 now occupy in the same relation only the twentieth in a scale of fifty- 

 two. 



_A more beautiful scene never greeted my eye than that which I 

 witnessed on the morning after my arrival. A lovely valley, covered 

 with a luxurious growth of native grasses, stretched away to the east, 

 the hills were crowned with majestic pines, a creek ran pellucid by 

 the town, the air was balmy and bracing, and the rich soil, the 

 abundance of water, the vegetation so luxuriant, the incomparable 

 climate, and all conditions invited to the natural use of the fertile 

 soil with which the Creator has blessed this county. How changed 

 the aspect in a few years! The hills were denuded of their trees, the 

 valley was ravished of its beauty, the stream ran turbid, the very 

 winds, once warm, were cold in their embrace. 



But we came for gold, and gold we must have, and no place was 



