438 MENDOCINO COUNTY 



and encouragement of the chiefest of industries and greatest of arts- 

 It is useless for me to detail the many reasons why this is so. They 

 are perfectl.y familiar to all thinking minds, and therefore do not 

 require repetition. 



It is pleasing to reflect and consider agriculture in its primitive- 

 ness, watch its progression through the long ages of time that have 

 elapsed, and view the high state of perfection in which we find it to- 

 day. The change from a state of nature, in which the human race 

 must have first lived, to the pastoral, or to any higher mode of living,, 

 must have been gradual, and perhaps the work of ages. The race 

 was doomed to toil, and necessity soon became the mother and sharp- 

 ened the power of invention. Even in our own generation we have 

 noted the great improvements that have been made in farming- 

 utensils, and how the skill of the inventor h^s triumphed over 

 manual labor. We notice this to a greater extent in our own country 

 than in others, for the reason, probably, that we only have " Yankees" 

 in the United States. In many parts of Europe they yet cut their 

 wheat with the sickle, use the wooden plow, harnessing men and 

 women to it, and threshing their grain with the flail. But, thanks ta 

 American genius and Yankee ingenuity, we can do the labor of the 

 farm almost wholly by machinery, and while tilling the soil do not 

 have to labor as menials, as do the great masses of the farmers on 

 the continent. 



In the course of time, during which man multiplied and wandered 

 from place to place, those countries were found most productive which 

 were watered by the Euphrates, Tigris, and the Nile, and the dwellers- 

 in their valleys actively engaged in tilling the soil, while the dwellers 

 in the hilly regions surrounding, which were better adapted to graz- 

 ing, became the owners of flocks of live stock. It is well known that 

 the agriculture of a people must be influenced by the climate and 

 the natural features of the country. Wliat can easily be grown in 

 southern California may be inimical to the soil and climate of the 

 northern portion of this State. For instance, the orange is success- 

 fully raised in Santa Barbara and Los Angeles, while with us the 

 climate is too cold and severe. And many common articles of pro- 

 duce can be grown here that would be a total failure in the warmer 

 climate of southern California. Its progress also depends to a great 

 degree on the density of the population. In our neighboring County 

 of Sonoma, which is much more thickly populated than this, farming^ 

 has arrived at greater perfection than in this county. 



Consulting the pages of history, we find that Egypt, Chaldea, and 

 China were among the first nations that followed agricultural pur- 

 suits to any considerable extent. In these countries, probably, 

 animal power was flrst applied to agriculture — where men and 

 women were unyoked from the plow and oxen were first hitched to 

 it. From Egypt a knowledge of the art extended to Greece, and 

 there we find it in a tolerably flourishing state about 1,000 years 

 before Christ, and where the art gradually advanced until, in the 

 days of her glory, it may be said to have attained, in some provinces, 

 a very high degree of perfection. The Greeks had flne breeds of 

 cattle, horses, sheep, and swine. Many of the implements for farm- 

 ing used by them in those days were not very unlike those of the 

 , present time, in our own country. Extensive importations were 

 made from foreign countries of sheep, swine, and poultry, for the- 

 purpose of improving their stock. The importance of a thorough 



