180 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



This 3'ear the Societj^ sent a visiting committee to visit and report 

 upon the progress of agriculture and horticulture in every section of 

 the State, and their report, as published in the official transactions, 

 was calculated to and did attract great attention in all parts of the 

 world, and brought to the State a large number of skilled farmers 

 and horticulturists to engage in their special departments of cultiva- 

 tion. 



As samples of some of the facts elicited by the committee, Charles^ 

 Green, of the Q Ranch, in lone Valley, Amador County, realized in 

 1855, $4,000 from four acres of broom corn, and would, in the estima- 

 tion of the committee, realize in that year from two acres of water- 

 melons from $15,000 to $20,000. 



In Santa Clara County, in the garden of Thomas Fallon, they saw 

 pear trees, grafted in the previous year with the Bartlett variety of 

 pears, in full bearing, and the pears measuring from thirteen to four- 

 teen inches in circumference. The fruit from four pear trees, grafted 

 but eighteen months before, had been sold for $160. 



In Los Angeles County the committee state that Wm. Wolf skill 

 had realized the previous year $120 for the fruit from one orange tree, 

 and a net profit of $700 had been made from the fruit gathered from 

 seven trees. The oranges were sold at seven cents apiece. 



President Beard, in his opening address, made, among others, the 

 following statements : 



" Never before was there a commonwealth six years old that could 

 make such an exhibition as he saw before him. As regards the 

 amount of production per acre, our soil surpasses that of any other 

 State in the world. Small as is the amount of our improved lands, 

 we already raise the breadstuffs to feed our population and to report 

 a large surplus. We excel all the other States in the production of 

 barley. The amount raised this year is worth more at present than 

 the entire croj^ of all the States in 1850. California is at this time 

 the ninth State in the production of wheat, and was, as early as 1853, 

 the tenth in the amount of potatoes raised. 



" We raise a very large amount of stock, and no State has greater 

 natural advantages for the cheap and easy production of stock. I see 

 also in the fact that large sums are being expended by some of our 

 most enterprising citizens for the introduction of improved breeds, 

 a token that we shall soon take that precedence to which our soil and 

 climate entitle us. As farmers our great want is now a market. If 

 now a railroad was opened across the continent, many of our products 

 would find a market in Utah and the middle regions of the country. 

 At the same time a growing commerce on the Pacific, to meet the 

 great commercial highway opened, would search all the populated 

 regions surrounding this great ocean, discovering and creating other 

 markets for our productions. Then our prices would not be ruined 

 as now by a little excess of production, or raised extravagantly high 

 by a little defect." 



Judge J. B. Crockett delivered the annual address before the Society 

 that year. It was full of valuable information. To show the rapid 

 transition from a non-producing to a producing community we were 

 making, he stated that as late as 1853 we imported: 



