STA TE A GRICUL TUBAL SO CIETY. 201 



This debt would have been canceled this year but for damages at 

 the stock grounds necessitating repairs at a cost of over $3,000. 



The sixteenth annual meeting of the Society was held on the 28th 

 of January, 1869. C. F. Reed was again re-elected President, and 

 Edgar Mills and C. T. Wheeler w^ere re-elected Directors. Robert 

 Hamilton, of Sacramento, was elected the third Director. At the 

 meeting of the Board, I. N. Hoag declined the election of Secretary, 

 and the Board elected Robert Beck of Sacramento Secretary, and R. 

 T. Brown Treasurer. 



At the same meeting of the Board the following resolution was 

 passed by a unanimous vote: 



That the thanks of this Board be tendered to the late Secretary, I.'N. Hoag, for the able man- 

 ner in which he has performed the arduous duties of his office for the past six years. 



The general interest in the Society was well maintained in 1869; 

 and the fair was in many respects equal or superior to any of its pre- 

 decessors. It was held from the 6th to the 11th of September. 



President Reed congratulated the Society upon the completion of 

 the Pacific Railroad: 



By this road not only the East and the West, but the North and the South are made one. 

 Politically speaking, of many countries, of many conflicting interests, of many peojjle, this road 

 has made one. While heretofore we have felt and acted as citizens of many States, with con- 

 flicting and apparently irreconcilable interests, now we are beginning to feel that we are citi- 

 zens of one common country, with interests and objects identical. 



He discussed the land monopolj^ question: 



I refer to the accumulation of lands in the hands of cor]-)orations and wealthy individuals for 

 speculative purposes. Thousands of acres of land in all desirable portions of the State, which 

 but two years ago could have been bought of the Government or the State for from one dollar 

 to one dollar and a quarter an acre, cannot now be bought lor less than ten to fifteen dollars 

 per acre. What is the result? Immigration to the State is checked; the settlement and 

 improvement of our vacant lands is slow and uncertain, and consequently the prosperity of the 

 State is held in abeyance. * * * The prosperity, certain and lasting, of our agri- 

 culture lies in the variety of production equal to the variety of our capacity and the demand 

 upon us. Let our lands be divided up into small farms, and we insure that variety of pro- 

 duction, and consequently that certain and permanent prosperity. 



Edward Tompkins, of Alameda, delivered the annual address. He 

 gave a graphic description of the settlement of California by the 

 most energetic and enterprising people of both continents and the 

 islands of both oceans. He pictured the resources of California, and 

 the progress these people had made in their development, and showed 

 that they had enriched the world by a thousand millions dug from 

 her mines and produced from her soil, and then traced the effect of 

 this increased wealth upon the business of the world: 



A thousand millions! Can you comprehend such a sum? Does not the mind falter as it 

 attempts to grasp it? And if its simple statement is so incomprehensil)le, how shall we bow in 

 humility if we undertake to follow it in its world-developing work? Through all the avenues 

 of commerce it circulates to the centers that attract it. Accumulated there as in reservoirs, it 

 invites drafts upon it from all that need. The great manufactory comes and presents its claim, 

 and becomes the means by which a shower of blessings descends upon the thousands that 

 depend upon it for subsistence. Commerce asks a subsidy, and accumulation gladly answers its 

 demands, as it whispers to itself, " I scatter, but to gather again." Great raili-oads present their 

 claims, with arguments so irresistible that even cupidity finds its greatest gratification in parting 

 with its hoards to help them onward, and smiles complacently as it remembers that the vast 

 increase of popular wealth that they cause increases also an hundred fold the harvest it will 

 reap from the seed tlius sown. And so through every department of business and life. Capital 

 drawn from its great reservoirs and scattered in showers commences at once to circulate back as 

 it had done before, to the place from wlience it came, that it may again be concentrated and 

 sent forth to repeat its work of beneficence on earth. 



26 



