>i \ ir AGRICULTURAL BOCIETY. 193 



CENTRAL AND NORTHERN CALIFORNIA. 



Address delivered by Senator J. A. Filches, of Placer, at the formal opening of the North- 

 ern California Citrus Fair, at Sacramento, Tuesday evening, January 12, L886. 



Mk. President, Ladies, and Fellow Citizens: In addition to the timely 

 remarks of our able President. I may be permitted also, on his behalf and 

 on behalf of the officers and committees associated with him in the gnat 

 task which they have so successfully performed, to hid you welcome to this, 

 the first Citrus Fair of northern California. Welcome, I would say, to this 

 rare and beautiful exhibit prepared for you — for your admiration and 

 instruction, and for the instruction of the civilized world. Let me repent 

 to vou, also, a welcome to the Queen City of northern California, the proud 

 capital of our State, the seat of learning and of art, and the home of refine- 

 ment and of enterprise. Sacramento, more perhaps than any other city of 

 our day, is noted for its liberality, for its hospitality, and for its business 

 enterprise. Possessed of an indomitable will and an unconquered and 

 unconquerable energy, the business men and citizens generally of this city, 

 have successfully combated all obstacles to her progress, her prosperity, 

 and her safety. By a work prodigious in its proportions, this city has been 

 raised at least ten feet from her original level, and to-day, proud of her 

 achievements, she stands forth in her exalted position, and with an air of 

 importance becoming the second commercial center of the great Golden 

 State, bids you. through me, a most hearty and cordial welcome. 



This Fair, this bountiful and handsome display of citrus fruits, so gen- 

 erous in size, so handsome in appearance, so rich in flavor, and all pro- 

 duced in northern California, tell a tale that to many will be wonderful. 

 These silent fruits preach a sermon, the eloquence of which is all powerful, 

 the lesson of which is all instruction, the truth of which is all convincing. 

 Their eloquence reaches the remotest bounds of civilization, and they tell 

 mankind in convincing terms that the olive and the vine, the lemon and 

 the fig, thrive to perfection in northern California. 



We are a young State. We had much to learn. We have much to learn 

 now. The first settlers doubted the capacity of the soil for the production 

 of anything more than grass for grazing. As late as 1859, when I, with my 

 parents, arrived in California with ox teams, after crossing the plains, we 

 found the only settlements were along the rivers, and were told that all the 

 good land was taken up. What are now the great wheat fields of the great- 

 est wheat growing State in the Union — a State that in 1884 produced nearly 

 60,000,000 bushels of this staple cereal — were then vast prairies, covered 

 with droves of wild cattle, the only use for which they were considered valua- 

 ble. The first who attempted to till the "plains land," as it was called, 

 were considered foolish. To-day they are the possessors of fine homes, and 

 are considered fortunate. The virtue of the plains land being discovered, 

 it was soon appropriated as far as to the border of the foothills. Our people 

 began to concede that anywhere in the valley a good crop could be raised 

 by proper tillage, but the same wise heads that were forced to this admis- 

 sion by the experience that surrounded them, would gravely tell you that 

 the foothills possessed no elements of production. It is not ten years since 

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