-r\ I Ml I Mil DISTRICT AGRICULTURAL ASSOCIATION. ">7.". 



his church is nut to !»• forgotton, nor the militant preacher, Bland, nor 

 many others. 



Early in the fifties the neighboring town of ( rrass Valley, with such men 

 as ihr Watts to help, grew to importance from its quartz discoveries, ami 



has ever since hern a principal and thriving scat of that industry. Nevada 



was not to lie outdone, ami bo T. \V. t lolburn, and other ardent souls, opened 

 the Bunker Hill mine on Deer Creek, erected a roasting furnace, and put 

 a pan underneath to catch the dripping gold, which never dripped. When 

 I left here, fifteen years a<_ r o. to enter upon renewed service in Congress, 

 there were three or four quartz mines in this vicinity, of more or less doubt- 

 ful value. Now then are thirty worked to one then, some most excellent; 

 and this industry gives a promise here, as well as present return, unequaled 

 in any other pari of the State. 



This development is not confined to this special neighborhood. Wash- 

 ington Township is redeeming an early promise in this regard. Eureka 



Township mines seems inviting, (irass Valley keeps its repute; ami some 



quartz operations in Placer County have not been without reward. 



Then fruit raising cannot be better prosecuted anywhere in the State 

 than in this district. Fruit freights east will comedown undoubtedly with 

 increased business. Nevada and Placer Counties can raise fruit unex- 

 celled in the world; and the market east is inexhaustible for the best 

 kinds. Out of these elements, with incidental employments, can these 

 communities be maintained? It is the serious question of the hour. 



There are causes which have cheeked the prosperity of these counties, 

 and measurably of this city, and which may, perhaps, have continued 

 operation. It is better to look such things in the face; to meet them man- 

 fully, rather than to be self-deceived. The bountiful hand of Providence 

 has scattered in parts of these counties wealth beyond the desires of 

 avarice, if it could be secured. Unfortunately there is but one method 

 known to man, or likely to be invented, by which these treasure chambers 

 can be unlocked, and that method works inconvenience and loss to the 

 valleys. So the courts have decided that the hydraulic miner has no right 

 to use his own to the injury of others. The ultimate effect of the decree is 

 that thousands of millions of dollars' worth of gold shall lie serviceless 

 under the hills, and all the great expenditures made to create agencies to 

 extract this gold shall be lost. 



From a miner's point of view this not only involves a great hardship, but 

 is the disappointment of a reasonable hope. The Government, as the owner 

 of the mines, acquiesced for a generation in the occupation and working of 

 the mines, and knew that its citizens were expending hundreds of millions 

 of dollars in labor and capital in opening the mines and introducing costly 

 machinery. It went further by its legislation, even before the sale of the 

 mines, by exempting mineral land from preemption and sale, by collecting 

 a yearly license for working them, by levying a royalty on the gross proceeds 

 of the mines, and by making the rules, regulations, and customs of miners 

 the rule of decision in Courts. Under this policy, the miner never consid- 

 ered himself as a trespasser on the public domain, and never liable to 

 blame for working his claim, and such was never the opinion of the Gen- 

 eral Government, or of any one else. After a generation of this policy the 

 Government finally sold the mineral lands to miners, requiring proof in 

 every case, not only that the land was mineral land, but that it was actually 

 used as such; and forbidding the occupancy of such land without purchase, 

 unless actually and regularly mined. Thereupon the miners paid their 

 money to the Government for their claims, made still more systematic im- 



