426 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



ANNUAL ADDRESS. 



By Mr. Joseph D. Lynch, editor of the Los Angeles Herald, Tuesday evening, 



October 20, 1885. 



The following is a synopsis of Mr. Lynch's address: 



Mr. President, Ladies, and Gentlemen: The sixth annual Fair of the 

 Sixth District Agricultural Society opens here to-night in a building which 

 would be eclectic for symmetry in any city of the United States. The Mott 

 Market House, for which we are indebted to Hon. T. D. Mott, is a credit 

 to Los Angeles, and is a fitting depository for the multiform products of 

 southern California. We see gathered here from all the counties compos- 

 ing this district, great and varied treasures, agricultural, pomological, and 

 horticultural. Every thing famed in classical and scriptural narrative as 

 typical of the earth's abundance is here on exhibition, and they are the pro- 

 duets of a land of unrivaled fertility and beauty — a second garden of Aload- 

 din, such as Southey makes his Thalaba rave about when he exclaims: 



And, oh, what odor the voluptuous vale, 



Scatters from jasmine bowers, 

 From yon rose wilderness, 



From cluster'd henna and from orange groves. 



And, yet, but a few short years ago, this wonderful region was a mere 

 pasture, and was contemptuously designated in the northern and central 

 portions of California as the cow counties. When we reflect upon how 

 short has been the time in which this magical transformation has taken 

 place, our appreciation of the matchless sun and soil of southern California^ 

 and of Los Angeles County particularly, grows apace. 



I hope it will not be regarded as egotistical if I shall undertake to give a 

 few of my own observations in this and adjoining counties. I first saw Lo& 

 Angeles about April 1, 1873. The United States census of 1870 gave her 

 a population scarcely one sixth of what it is now. Then the only means 

 of communication with the outside world consisted of the steamer service 

 from the port of Wilmington, and stages running to San Diego, Ventura,, 

 San Francisco, and Yuma. At that time the only considerable settlements 

 in the three southern counties, exclusive of Los Angeles, were San Bernar- 

 dino and San Diego. In a trip made by me to both places, two or three 

 passengers, exclusive of myself, were the only occupants of the coaches. 



Now we see three, and practically four, transcontinental railways centering 

 here, and they have frequently brought into Los Angeles in a single week 

 more passengers than then arrived in a whole year. Where formerly a 

 single ordinary stage coach held three or four passengers between Los 

 Angeles and San Bernardino, now two great transcontinental railways run 

 several trains daily, and they often bring to the city a hundred times the 

 number who, over the same route, were wont to arrive here in the old days 

 by coach. 



At the date of which I speak, there were only two or three houses at 

 Riverside — Judge North's and, at the most, two others — and that superb 

 settlement was scarcely in embryo. To-day, Riverside contains four thou- 

 sand souls and upward, and can boast of as much perfected beauty as any 



