AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 335 



NATURAL ADVANTAGES AND MATERIAL DEVELOPMENT OF SAN JOAdUIN COUNTY. 



fFrom the San Francisco Merchant.] 



What is now San Joaquin County is identified with tlie early set- 

 tlement of California, having been brought to the notice of gold 

 seekers by the discoveries of rich deposits of gold on the Mokelumne 

 River by Captain Weber. The gold previously found by John A. 

 Sutter was in scales, but the first gold discovered in what was known 

 as the Southern mines was coarse, and spoken of at the time as 

 "large lumps." G. K. Tinkham, who is the author of a inanuscript 

 history of Stockton, claims, with apparent justice, that the honor of 

 discovering the gold fields of California, the basis of all the subse- 

 quent growth and prosperity of the State, belongs as well to Captain 

 Weber as to Captain Sutter. Certain it is that the former, after much 

 prospecting, organized the " Stockton Mining Company," and from 

 that humble beginning may be dated a history which, both as to the 

 county and its capital, has been one of continued growth, and which 

 has now reached a point of prosperity, remarkable even when com- 

 pared with other prosperous counties and towns in this State. 



The gold production which caused the first influx into the South- 

 ern mines, and the selection of Stockton as a commercial distributing 

 point, has long since yielded in importance to the growth of wheat. 

 The rich soil of the San Joaquin and Mokelumne Valleys is more 

 fruitful of reliable wealth than the sands and rocks of the modern 

 El Dorado. Without entering into a long array of statistics, a single 

 illustration will serve to show the vastness of the wealth extracted from 

 the teeming soil of San Joaquin. This year, with a population of 

 35,000, the county produced 120,000 tons of wheat, valued at $4,000,000, 

 or nearly three and one-half tons of wheat to each soul of the popu- 

 lation. To this must be added the manufacturing and transportation 

 interests involved in raising and moving this immense crop — the 

 lumber, iron, coal, engines, cars, wagons, vessels, and labor — and it is 

 not surprising that, while the surrounding country is rich in grain, 

 grasses, and fruit, Stockton, as the commercial center, is one of the 

 busiest cities on the coast. 



It is one of those cities so rarely found in the interior where the 

 atmosphere seems to tell of thrift. Not only its old but its young 

 business men have the firm tread and jaunty air of assured prosperity. 

 Two artesian wells, broad, well lighted streets, handsome stores, well 

 filled with every commodity, capacious hotels, mammoth warehouses, 

 the puffing of steam and clanging of hammers from foundries and 

 workshops innumerable, are among the outward signs of an estab- 

 lished commercial and manufacturing city, which had, in 1847, a 

 population of twenty persons, and the single store belonging to 

 Charles M. Weber. There is no more significant indication of pros- 

 perity in a city of fourteen or fifteen thousand population than 

 this. A week was spent by the writer, on a business errand, during 

 which he passed through every street and all the suburbs, and yet 

 among the hundreds of cosy homes failed to see one placard of " to 

 let"_ displayed. Unlike many places, population increases more 

 rapidly than dwellings can be built for its accommodation. 



The Stockton paper mill is a large and flourishing establishment, 

 to do justice to the merits of which would require at least a column 



