SEVENTH DISTRICT AGRICULTURAL ASSOCIATION. 461 



and horses, with no other ambition than to sell them, will never bave any 

 exhibits at a Fair. The fanner who tills the soil, with no other motive 

 than to make a living, will have a poor farm, and will never make any 

 progress. Such a farmer would be plowing with a stick to-day; would go 

 to mill on horseback, and carry a stone in one end of ;i sack to make it 

 balance the grain in the other end, so thai it would lay across the pack of 

 his horse. Such farmers make no progress. They learn nothing, nor do 

 they improve anything. They are the drones in the hive of agricultural 

 industry. They have not even the pride of a dude, for he thinks so much 

 of his business that he will dress well, walk up and down the streets, smoke 

 cigarettes, smile on the girls, and spend his father's money with the dignity 

 <>f a king. No, fellow citizens, the farmer's work is grand and noble, and 

 the man who engages in it should feel that his labor is honorable, and that 

 his mind should expand with the progress of the age in which he lives. 



This is a wonderful age; an age when lightning is harnessed by the 

 hands of men, and electricity sheds rays of man's intelligence. This is an 

 age when steam plows the soil, digs into the bowels of the earth, carries 

 the people across the globe, over land and sea. This is an age when 

 thoughts rim across the bosom of the ocean, and the click of the telegraph 

 speaks the thoughts of Europe to the minds of America. This is the age 

 of brains, in art, in literature, in everything. This is an age when farming 

 is done by machinery, and the farmer uses his intellect. This is an age 

 when intelligence rules the world, and the farmer w/mt keep pace with its 

 progress, or he lags behind, with the word " failure " written across his fore- 

 head. 



We want farmers in this State who have energy and pluck; who are 

 looking into the future and foresee that this State and this Nation is grow- 

 ing into years, and that the land is wearing out, and that new crops are to 

 be raised, and that new machinery must be invented to take the place of 

 the old, and that new ideas must and will eliminate the old ones; that 

 the days of public lancj and poor farming have passed, and that the mul- 

 tiplication of labor-saving machinery is driving muscle out of the market, 

 and that the constant increase of population from foreign countries, and 

 the increase of our own people, means a strong opposition in every depart- 

 ment of labor among the bread-winners. 



We must learn — all of us — that the time is coming — aye, is now here — 

 when prices will go down, down, down, until the profit upon every article 

 of production shall be almost nothing; until a day's wage will be so small 

 that a man can scarcely live. You may laugh at the prediction; I care 

 not; for sooner or later the awful truth will enforce itself upon you with 

 the conviction of reality. When there are twenty men trying to rent the 

 same piece of land, they will bid for it like purchasers at an auction. The 

 rental price will go up and the profits of the tenant will go down. This 

 any orie who thinks must certainly see. Again, the European markets are 

 no longer needing the immense grain supply of the United States, for the 

 lands of far India are becoming, under the magic influence of English 

 gold, the grain field of Europe, and the cheap labor of the natives of that 

 far country, and the cheap transportation across the ocean, makes it impos- 

 sible for California to much longer compete with Asia and Southern 

 Europe in the matter of the exportation of cereals. This, therefore, ought 

 to teach us two lessons: first, that our farmers must change their grain 

 fields into orchards and vineyards; and second, that if the farmers do not, 

 manual labor will fall to the lowest minimum, and crop after crop will 

 linger upon their hands and lay in warehouses unsold. 



This is no new idea. It takes no stretch of the imagination to foresee 



