TWELFTH DISTRICT AGRICULTURAL ASSOCIATION. 523 



serve existing climatic conditions. Cut off tlie timber and j'ou increase 

 the mean temperature of a district — cause a cold country to become 

 more rigorous, and a warm one hotter and arid. Plant trees and the 

 converse of the above results proves equally true. Asia Minor, now so 

 dry and sterile, a few centuries ago, with the mountains and hillsides 

 covered with the stately cedar and umbrageous oak, teemed with the 

 most populous nations of antiquity. 



Beautiful Granada, famed in story and song, her fertile plains ver- 

 dant with the olive, date, and palm, her timber preserved by the 

 stringent forestry laws of the Moors, is, to-day, denuded of lier sylvan 

 protection, dry and sterile. Ohio, New York, and Pennsylvania all 

 bear evidence, by the increased rigor of their Winters, what conse- 

 quences must follow the careless, thoughtless denuding of our arbor- 

 iferous districts. In Europe forestry has become a science, sylviculture 

 is enforced and protected by the Government. In the United States 

 the most beneficial results are already attendant upon the systematic 

 tree planting in Kansas, Iowa, and a few other States. 



On the Pacific Coast we are personally interested in this subject. 

 Our forests are fast melting away, and no provision is being made for 

 their renewal. We need our woods to save us from the parching 

 droughts of Summer, or protect us from the devastation of sudden 

 torrents in Winter. Trees are Nature's thermometers., The strong 

 arm of the Government must be interposed to protect them. Thirty 

 per cent of our acreage should be occupied by forests in order that 

 we might have the proper climatic eqifipoise. I hope that our State 

 Government will awaken to the necessity, and that our next Legisla- 

 ture will enact and provide for the enforcement of forestry laws, such 

 as will protect and increase our timber preserves. 



TRANSPORTATION. 



Mountain-locked as we are, the question of transportation is an 

 interesting and costly one to us. We need a railroad. In this coun- 

 try of magnificent distances, railroads, or some other equally speedy 

 method of transportation are necessary to arouse into activity and 

 sustain its internal industries. Financially unable ourselves to con- 

 struct the road, we must then offer railroad builders suitable induce- 

 ments. Not the bait of a subsidy, ground out of a heavily taxed 

 community, but the better, more satisfactory, lasting inducements, of 

 a paying business all along the route. 



Men do not spend millions on railroads for amusement, but as an 

 investment. If we but improve the opportunities kind Nature affords 

 us, cultivate these hills and valleys, make the waste places "bloom 

 and blossom as the rose," make business for a railroad with our grain, 

 stock, fruit, wool, and wine, we will soon have the iron horse thunder- 

 ing through the gorges of Cache Creek, skimming along the shores of 

 Clear Lake, and causing the mossy avenues of Mendocino's redwoods 

 to reverberate with his whistle. The settlement of this question of 

 transportation is very much in our own hands. We hold the key, 

 and with our wives and boys can solve the problem. 



LABOR. 



True it is difficult to keep the boys on the farm. They look upon 

 farm life as drudgery, and if we drag them around the ranch fifteen 



