EIGHTH DISTRICT AGRICULTURAL ASSOCIATION. 451 



do not afford at least the primary education to fit your sons for entry 

 into the Agricultural Department of the University, see to it that the 

 curriculum is enhirged. The University now offers almost every 

 facility for the education of young men who intend to follow farming, 

 and especially fruit growing. 



It is doing a noble work. Its professors are analyzing soils, classi-. 

 fying lands into sections suitabk^ for special fmits, advising all 

 inquirers, experimenting at their gardens with i)lants and trees from 

 all i)arts of the globe, distril)utii]g seed, and with marvelous zeal are 

 stimulating a genuine love of rural })ursuits. 



In the past five years it has* repaid to the State by the aid it has 

 extended to farmers, orchardists, and vineyardists, more than its 

 whole cost. I bespeak for the University your fostering care. This 

 Winter your representatives will assemble at Sacramento in the Leg- 

 islature. The University may need an appropriation to enable it to 

 carry on its agricultural department. I know that Professor Hilgard 

 is already hampered by want of means, and I hope your Senators 

 and Assemblymen will stand ready to vote such an appropriation as 

 is necessary to enable the University to enlarge its field of usefulness. 

 It will be good seed sown on good ground and will yield to you an 

 hundredfold. 



My friends, long since I dreamed a dream, and still I dream. I 

 am the son of a farmer, "proud of his field lore and harvest craft," 

 and my dream was as is of a farmer's mountain home. For me now 

 I doubt if it is to be, but my vision is of those who shall come after 

 me and people these mountain slopes. 



For the young men, for your sons, who are stirred by ambition's 

 rage, the richest possibilities lie within their reach. Here are the 

 mountains to enlarge their i^^atures and quicken the imagination; 

 here a pure atmosphere, the very inspiration of energy; here a soil 

 responsive to solicitation, and which will return of ministering love 

 a thousandfold. 



They will have inherited from you your rugged virtues born of 

 pioneer struggles, your courage and endurance, and learning and 

 culture will add luster to their lives. They will be as Whittier says: 

 " Men to match their mountains, not to creep dw^arfed and abashed 

 below them." The slopes will be gracious with festooning vines bear- 

 ing purple grapes whose juice will inake glad the heart of man. 



But the bravery of California will be the homes, the hallowed 

 homes, that shall be set as gems in the Sierra, the coronet upon her 

 brow. 



There will be no acres broad to separate and chill the impulse of 

 hospitality, nor wide domains to nurse luxurious pride, but brother 

 linked to brother man by common aims and equal lot, shall make 

 religion of honest toil until Sierra shall blossom as a rose, and seed 

 time, and harvest, and virtue, and faith, and love shall never fail. 



The Golden Age must come. The eye that looks for it, the faith 

 that endures for it, the heart that believes in it, are already at its 

 threshold. Let each of us pray with Whittier: 



" ! Golden Age, Avhose liglit is of the dawn, 

 And not of sunset, foi-ward, not behind, 

 Flood the new heavens and earth, and with thee bring 

 All the old virtues, whatsoever things 

 Are pure and honest and of good repute, 

 But add thereto whatever bard has sung 

 Or seer has told of when in trance or dream 

 They saw the happy isles of prophecy!" 



