652 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



In reviewing all these partially developed resources of our portion of the 

 State, a long felt need, the most prominent obstacle to the march of prog- 

 ress, forces itself with increasing weight upon our consideration. It is 

 railroad connection with the outside world. Since we are, by nature's con- 

 formation in this mountain-locked region, debarred from the advantages 

 of water outlet, we must rely upon the most available one across terra 

 firma, and we hope it will soon be available — this coming railroad, so 

 ardently wished for, yet so long delayed. 



In connection with the subject of transportation we have ancient author- 

 ity to substantiate our claims. As far back as the time of Cato, some 

 eighteen centuries ago, we find that enterprising agriculturists demanded 

 as requisites to success the same conditions that modern farmers require, 

 namely: good fertile soil, well tilled; that the farmer should be a seller 

 rather than a buyer, and near to a market or in reach of one by rapid 

 transportation. To be sure, in Cato's time the sound of the locomotive 

 was never heard. The iron horse was a triumph of engineering skill as yet 

 undreamed of. But in this age, in every land of any enterprise and prog- 

 ress, its aid is an indispensable factor of success and improvement. " It 

 will not pay to be behind the times," is a hackneyed but forcible expres- 

 sion, and now that the attention of emigrants is being drawn to the north-, 

 ern portion of our State by the acknowledged superiority of the soils for the 

 raising of fruits; by their adaptability to all kinds of farming; by the 

 absence of a necessity for irrigation; by the numerous medicinal springs 

 and Summer resorts scattered throughout the mountains, and, greater than 

 all, by the health giving climate, we feel that our portion of the State is 

 offering too great inducements — that we are becoming too numerous a peo- 

 ple — are building up too lucrative a trade — to be much longer ignored by 

 the great transcontinental lines of the United States. 



I wish to say something to you in reference to home life on the farm and 

 the evident desire there is in the minds of many, especially the young men 

 and women, to escape, as they think, from the drudgery of farm life, by 

 going to the city to seek their fortunes. There may be some here to-day 

 who remember when they stood on the doorstep of the old farm house for 

 the last time; can remember the mother's kiss as, with a heart too full for 

 words, she bade you good-by : can remember the " God bless you, my boy," 

 of the old father, as he held your hand in his and warned you that the for- 

 tune you were going to seek could only be gained by steady, honest 

 endeavor in whatever walk you might select as your path in life. But you 

 were young, and to you the world opened out as one grand garden into 

 which you had only to walk and pluck the choicest fruits in the way of 

 fortune gained or ambition realized. You may remember how soon the 

 fancies of the young imagination were dispelled; how castle after castle 

 reared in fancy towered for awhile in beauty in the mind, then tottered 

 and fell, buried beneath the dust of their own ashes — burned in the cruci- 

 ble of stern realities and found wanting, and often as you stood by the 

 grave of some buried hope there would a sigh, a wish, go out for the old 

 roof-tree, though it stood under less genial skies than this Golden State. 



To my mind there can be no life more free from care than the life of the 

 agriculturist — the farmer. No life which is freer from temptations that 

 debase and lower our manhood and womanhood. No life so conducive to 

 the physical development of the child, which is the groundwork of superior 

 mental development in the man or woman. 



In concluding I would say: Fathers, do not ask your son to look only on 

 the hard and unpoetical side of a farmer's life. Help him to see a beauty 

 in the growing grain, the horse he drives, in everything with which nature 



