STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 11 



in the best of condition, and the prospect for an extraordinary wheat 

 crop is unusually good. The fruit, wine, wool, and other crops are 

 equally promising, and prospects for good prices are very flattering 

 for all that the farmers may produce. 



One of the truest things that can be said of our State is, that when 

 agriculture prospers all other indvistries prosper. Hence the import- 

 ance of fostering in every way practical that knowledge which leads 

 to agricultural skill and agricultural success, and consequently to 

 success in every other department of the State's industries. 



It is with pleasure we contemplate the businesslike view the framers 

 of our recently adopted Constitution took of the question of agricult- 

 ural and industrial education, and the plain manner in which they 

 expressed that view when they declared that "the Legislature shall 

 encourage, by all suitable means, the promotion of intellectual, scien- 

 tiflc, moral, and agricultural education." 



The industrial classes have taken new courage and imbibed new 

 faith in consequence of the liberal views expressed in the first inau- 

 gural of your Excellency on the subjects of agricultural and general 

 industrial education and improvement. 



We feel that we are living in an age of practical advancement, and 

 that the material industries of our State are just entering upon an era of 

 prosperity heretofore unknown. It rests with the present Legislature 

 to give a wise direction to the impulses which a combination of favor- 

 able circumstances has inspired, with reference to the future material 

 prosperity of our State. 



It is incumbent upon our lawmakers to determine whether labor 

 shall find within our State profltable employment in the develop- 

 ment of our known and latent resources, or whether it shall go about 

 the country begging bread. Let capital be shown whore it may be 

 safely and profitably invested, and skill and enterprise directed where 

 they may reasonably expect a fair reward for their exertions, and 

 labor will not go unemployed or unremunerated. No State in the 

 Union, or the world, presents to-day better opportunities for the 

 investment of millions in paying enterprises or legitimate business 

 operations. No State can present better natural inducements to the 

 small farmer, wine or fruit grower, with a few hundred dollars as a 

 stake to begin with, and around which to accumulate a competency 

 for a rainy day, than does California at this time. There is no State 

 in the Union, or the world, to-day, in which the natural conditions 

 are so favorable to accumulations of means by the laboring man or 

 laboring woman, with habits of industry and frugality. 



The opportunities of obtaining land at small cost, and building 

 thereon good and pleasant homes, are unexcelled. The cost of living 

 is small compared to the wages of well directed and persevering 

 exertion. But there is a great lack of correct information as to the 

 natural advantages and enviable opportunities to be found within 

 our borders for the capitalist, the man of small means, and the bare- 

 handed laborer. 



We have had our Bureaus of Information, and our Free Labor 

 Exchanges, but they have, as a general thing, been ephemeral insti- 

 tutions, supported and conducted for special purposes and personal 

 gain. Let tliese be supplanted by permanent institutions, organized 

 under State control and management, and charged by the State with 

 the collection and dissemination of correct and official information 

 in regard to our many and varied resources and material industries. 



