STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 193 



Let us next select for comparison an unirrigated district, and I will take 

 Vaca Valley. 



Here we find a present fruit area, not differing much from the Riverside 



in extent, but capable of greater expansion. Already this community has 

 made itself known and appreciated as widely as the products of our State 

 are known. An intelligent, prosperous, and happy people, proud of their 

 advancement, and self-reliant in their resources, they are an honor to our 

 State and a credit to our civilization. Here is a fine type of the fruit dis- 

 tricts of California, and a fair illustration of what should be found all 

 through our valleys. Compare it with a like area in the finest distinctively 

 wheat region of the State; compare it with itself before they discovered 

 the road to successful farming. Bring the Assessor's books into Court, 

 and let us see the relative burdens of wheat and fruit. From every view 

 point we are compelled to turn away from the cereals to find the highest 

 results attainable from our soil and climate. To persist in wheat growing 

 is to wash the non-paying top dirt and leave the rich bedrock for other 

 generations. 



I would invite you, Mr. President, to the fruit belt along Deer Creek, in 

 Tehama County. 



From 1.300 acres of land, yielding not more than one fifth of an average 

 crop, they have sold over $50,000 worth of green and dried fruits this year. 



Where are your 1,300 or your 5,000 acres of wheat land that can show 

 such results? " Multiply this result by five and we have a quarter of a mill- 

 ion dollars; divide this by two to obtain a safe average, and these 1,300 

 acres will produce a sum equal to the average product of 13,000 acres of 

 land sown to wheat. 



Northern California, even Tehama County alone, has thousands of these 

 rich, golden acres, awaiting the magic touch of the fruit grower. 



It is not expected that we can shift from wheat to fruit in a day, nor 

 would it be desirable or practicable to cease wheat growing. What I urge 

 is that wheat growers should begin at once to look around them for other 

 uses for their lands, and commence to work into industries that pay better. 

 They will soon find that they must part with some of their acreage, and 

 that will greatly help the general prosperity. They could better afford to 

 sell their lands at fair prices on interest-bearing mortgages of six per cent, 

 to persons who will improve, than go on impoverishing their lands at an 

 income less than four per cent on market values. 



Cognate to this subject we run at once into 



DIVERSIFIED FARMING. 



This, to my mind, embracing fruits, vegetables, nuts, stock, and the infi- 

 nite variety of things that can be profitably grown, will bring the true 

 solution of our greatest problem — what to grow. 



No farmer is entirely Independent who does not produce all articles of 

 home consumption that can be wrested from the soil. It is a reproach to 

 California farmers that so many of them buy butter, eggs, vegetables, and 

 fruits, or go without; it is a reproach to California that we should import 

 from Eastern States over one million and a quarter dozen of eggs annually, 

 at a cost of over $300,000. Every farmer should have poultry to sell; all 

 our wheat land will grow early garden products, and much of it late vege- 

 tables, without irrigation; all this land will also grow most of the decidu- 

 ous fruits and vines, but our farmers, as a rule, do not plant even for home 

 consumption. 

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