STATE AGKK I I II KAL SOCIETY. 181 



Every year in the future our wines will improve in quality, because our 

 varieties of grapes are better. Good wine can not be made from inferior 

 grapes, nor can the same character of wine be made in all parts of the 



State. The Bordeaux variety of crapes must be planted near the coast. 

 The grapes grown in the south of Prance and in Spain should be planted 

 in the interior, where the heat is gnat and where heavy wines are best pro- 

 duced. The best experience of centuries of grape culture in other coun- 

 tries show us what it is best to do in this country. Climatic influences 

 have a very marked effect on the character of wine produced. 



I have ventured to present the statistics and statements above, although 

 aware how difficult it is for a listener to appreciate their value, but they 

 prove one thing incontestably, namely, that the farmers of California are 

 passing through a transitional state; that 



WE ARE CHANGING THE CHARACTER OF OUR PRODUCTS; 



That dried, canned, and green fruits, including oranges and lemons, as the 

 products of our orchards, and raisins, wine, and brandy as the products of 

 our vineyards, are fast supplanting the other great fanning industries of 

 the State. We are, however, met at the threshold of these new industries 

 by the " croaker's " universal cry, "Over-production." 1 remember many 

 years ago, when some really well informed men wrote grave and serious 

 articles, and published them, to the effect that there would soon be an 

 over-production of gold in California, and that gold would lose its value 

 because of the vast amount taken out of our mines. We have, indeed, 

 found another mine of gold infinitely richer than the first; a mine that is 

 not for a day, but for all time, and in the working of which there is no 

 practical competition on this continent. We have the advantage of a new 

 land, unworn by ages of culture, and rich in boundless resources, of a cli- 

 mate unsurpassed, in salubrity of seasons so marked that we know when 

 to expect the sunshine or the storm. And though we are walled in by a 

 range of mountains on the east, and a great sea on the west, yet we have 

 scaled the one with numberless cars laden with our fruits and wines, and 

 we have traversed the other with hundreds of ships whose sails catch the 

 breath of every breeze that we may reach a foreign market with our grains. 



OVERPRODUCTION. 



Who ever heard of too much to eat? The fact is, California has pro- 

 duced so much of everything, and produced it so well, that whenever we 

 do enter into competition with the rest of the world in a new field of 

 industry, after all other complaints are dissipated, we hear the old cry, 

 "There is too much of it. True, it is good; but you produce too much." 

 Think of an overproduction in fruit ! Why, there are 50,000,000 pounds of 

 prunes imported into the United States annually. There is no reason why 

 California should not produce them all. Why overproduction in wine 

 when there are 800,000,000 gallons of wine made in France annually, and 

 yet they import more than they export; while in California we have only 

 one year made 15,000,000 gallons. The people drink more gallons of 

 whisky and beer in any one of four States of the Union every year than 

 all the wine we have ever made in California. Who in California ever 

 heard it said that there was an overproduction of whisky or beer? It is 

 gravely asserted that there is not a city of 20,000 inhabitants in the United 

 States where there is not a brewery or distillery, even including the State 

 of Iowa. How, then, can we produce too much wine, if it is good; but 



