SIXTH DISTRICT AGRICULTURAL ASSOCIATION. 539 



OPENING ADDRESS, 



DELIVERED BEFORE THE SIXTH DISTRICT AGRICULTURAL ASSOCIATION, 



OCTOBER 12, 1886. 



By L. J. Rose. 



Ladies and Gentlemen: We are again assembled to open the annual 

 return of our Fair, and each return is witnessed by increased prosperity 

 and progress. We may not see all the well-known faces of the past, but 

 where, now and then, one has dropped away, ten more bright and buoyant 

 ones have taken their places. We have much to be gratified at and to be 

 thankful for in the year that has passed. When other parts of our coun- 

 try, and the world, have been visited by earthquakes, cyclones, floods, and 

 storms, our own State and district have been favored by an abundant rain- 

 fall, but not excessive, by sunny days and temperate warmth. All the 

 products of our soil have been fully up to the normal condition of quantity 

 and quality to gladden the heart of the fruit grower or husbandman. Our 

 section has added at least twenty-five per cent to its population, and the 

 values of real estate have almost doubled. 



This, we, that live here, understand, for we know the conditions that are 

 the cause of this marvelous growth. Three hundred days in the year, or 

 more, we know that the sun will shine in an unclouded sky, and every 

 night in the year will be cool enough to make a blanket for cover a neces- 

 sity. We, too, have a soil that is most fertile, and grows a larger variety 

 of products than any country in the world. The fruits of northern and 

 southern lands grow with us in equal perfection, and are the envy and 

 admiration of connoisseurs of either locality. It will be appropriate for me 

 to say something here about the orange; about organizations of the grow- 

 ers for the purpose of placing it on the market in its most attractive form; 

 for the purpose of its intelligent distribution — that is, guarding against 

 overshipping any to one locality; for the purpose of getting the most favor- 

 able freight rates, and other objects, such as finding the best markets, the 

 best varieties to grow, etc. You are aware that for the past year we had 

 an association known as the Orange Protective Union, and I can say to you 

 now that it has closed its year's work to the satisfaction of all that were its 

 members; that it had a marked influence on the price of oranges, is an 

 admitted fact by even those that were not members ; that the distribution 

 was an improvement on all former efforts is, too, admitted ; that its work- 

 ing, in all its details, can be improved, is equally true, for one year's expe- 

 rience has taught us many things by which we can profit in the future, 

 and we can do better service with reduced expenditure for the future. 

 There is a meeting called of all the orange growers of Southern California 

 here in Los Angeles the tenth of November, and if all the growers are true 

 to themselves by their attendance and favoring a new organization for the 

 coming year, then the assurance is certain for good prices and prosperity. 

 In union there is strength, is an old saying, and in nothing does it hold as 

 surely as in this. You can each see for yourself that we will be a power 

 that will command respect and consideration from all transportation com- 



