182 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



wine, like wheat or fruit, must seek a market. It will not sell itself. Let 

 me remind you there cannot be an overproduction of the best of an article. 

 If we make the best raisins, the best wine, and the best brandy, and if we 

 can the best fruits, these will always sell, because for these things we 

 have the world for a market, but the world must know what we have to 

 sell. 



SALE OF PUBLIC LANDS. 



One of the most conspicuous evidences of our prosperity arises from the 

 largely increasing demand for our public land. It is estimated by Mr. 

 C. H. Street, Secretary of the Immigration Association of California, that 

 there are about 43,000,000 acres o*f Government land in this State; that 

 of this amount there are about 20,000,000 acres which are suitable for 

 agricultural purposes. In 1883 there were 5,287 applications for public 

 lands made in California, covering over 700,000 acres of land. In 1884 

 there were 7,252 applications filed in the Land Office for public lands, cov- 

 ering an area of 993,570 acres of land. This shows the character of the 

 immigration to California, and that white labor is fast filling up the space 

 made vacant by the exclusion of the Chinese, however imperfect that exclu- 

 sion may be. And what adds to the value of this class of immigration is 

 that they are all small farmers. 



SMALL FARMERS. 



A community of small farmers is a thrifty community. These build up 

 the State, give it population, practice ,habits of industry, rear their sons and 

 daughters to work, teach economy, build school-houses and churches, and 

 fill them. Small farmers beautify their homes and plant fruit trees. Such 

 people live moderately and within their means. Their food may be coarse, 

 and their clothes plain, but their sleep is as peaceful as their lives are harm- 

 less. In times of national peril they are the pillars of the State; they 

 form the great middle class of the country, and voice the average and bet- 

 ter judgment of the people. If few of them become great men, they at 

 least are the material from which great men are made. Small farmers 

 must raise something which requires close personal attention, and the rais- 

 ing of which requires their care. They have to work or starve; they 

 occupy the boundary line between poverty and affluence; they take news- 

 papers and read them; obey the laws of God and of their country; love 

 the little homes they have created, and the family that adorns them. 



THE PAST AND THE PRESENT. 



No one not a pioneer can imagine the great changes which but half a 

 lifetime has wrought in California. He who crossed the plains in 1847-8 

 or '49, and came down the western slope of the Sierra Nevadas, and looked 

 for the first time on the great valley of the Sacramento, saw before him a 

 picture of surpassing beauty. Whether we compare this magnificent, scene 

 to the more historic one of the plains of Lombardy as seen from the broken 

 ridges of the Alps, or that of the valley of Mexico, where from the, halls of 

 the Montezuma can be viewed upon the one hand the snow-capped peaks 

 of the Cordilleras, and on the other that great valley clothed in the rich 

 verdure of a semi-tropical clime, in either case, our own will lose nothing 

 by the comparison. Here, too, were great valleys, bigger than an empire 

 and as fertile as the Valley of the Nile, divided by narrow rivers whose 

 limpid waters had never been ruffled by the tide of commerce. Here were 



