SECOND DISTRICT AGRICULTURAL association. 451 



the Lifetime of man — l»ut comparatively short in that of Governments and 



nations, when the meat grandchildren of us here now of middle age shall 

 be occupying the position we arc qow filling, this great San Joaquin Val- 

 ley should be the home often millions of prosperous, industrious, virtuous, 

 and bappy people, the offspring of American fathers and mothers, whose 

 greatest duty is to preserve this grand heritage for their posterity. Guard 

 it jealously and vigilantly; once lost it may never be regained, and can 

 never be replaced, for the world, now thoroughly explored, nowhere con- 

 tains its equal. 



Farmers of the San Joaquin Valley, may I. without heing deemed im- 

 pertinent, call your attention to a few facts which all of you have, perhaps, 

 not investigated ? 



When this largest of the fertile valleys of the world shall contain ten 

 millions of people; when your great grandchildren shall be occupying in 

 life the positions you now till, there will be of tillable soil hut one acre to 

 each inhabitant. To carry this calculation two or three generations farther 

 makes the figures absolutely startling, and is as painful to contemplate as 

 Maudslev says is the human mind after it has passed through fourscore 

 years of human life. If the soil should be equally divided, your great 

 grandchild's share of this magnificent domain would be one acre, an area 

 so insignificant to-day that, unless peculiarly fertile and favorably located, 

 its acquisition or loss would scarcely cause you a passing thought. 



This magnificent domain, this grand heritage acquired for us by our 

 fathers, handed down from generation to generation, held as a sacred trust 

 by the existing, to be preserved, increased — surely not diminished — that 

 we are giving away with lavish hand, and in the most prodigal manner, to 

 every comer, holding out every inducement and enticing every one we can 

 to come and divide with us, is justly the property of our posterity- 



Macaulay draws a startling picture of the Cannibal Islander standing 

 on the broken arch of the ruined London Bridge, viewing the surrounding 

 desolation. 



Did I possess the ability to do so, I believe I could present one more 

 startling, more probable, more likely to be verified in the not very, very 

 distant future, of the descendants of the present proprietors of this great 

 San Joaquin Valley, from a peak of the snow-clad Sierras, viewing the 

 magnificent domain that was once their forefathers' and should be theirs, 

 and complaining — may we not say justly complaining? — of the hardly 

 less than criminal mismanagement and prodigality of those who had 

 deprived them of their heritages. 



Some may smile at this, and pronounce it far-fetched, visionary, improb- 

 able, and call me an enthusiast and alarmist. I would say to such, had you 

 went to the Jews in the days of their greatest power, when, under the wise 

 laws of Moses, every head of a family was the owner, inalienable, of a 

 portion of the soil; when, if by reason of misfortune, mismanagement, or 

 otherwise, he should lose the possession of his patrimony, fifty years or 

 less, the year of jubilee, would return to him, or his descendants, free of 

 every incumbrance or restraint, and undertaken to tell them that they 

 would lose their government, country, all, and become wanderers all over 

 the face of the earth, to be persecuted by every other peoples — tell them 

 just what history shows has befallen that once most enlightened, powerful, 

 rich, and happy nation — you would have found no more believing listeners 

 than you are making for me here to-day. 



It is only by constant, vigilant, earnest, honest, and virtuous effort that 

 any nation, people, community, or individual can retain prosperity and 

 power once attained. Laziness, corruption, carelessness, vice, and igno- 



