STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 273 



around the domestic fireside impurity, the twin of slavery — hoth relics 

 of barbarism — which, when hemmed in and forced to unwilling contact 

 with a pure Christianity, everj'where decay and die. 



Although the volume of the Mormon emigration was brought to a halt 

 at Salt Lake from causes brief! 3^ stated, their continued location at this 

 point has hardly a less remarkable influence on the progress and devel- 

 opment of the States and Territories west of the Bock}- Mountains than 

 it would have had had it reached its point of intended destination. Being 

 half wa}' on the overland route. Salt Lake City, with its abundant sup- 

 plies for man and beast — the product of the most extraordinary agricul- 

 tural perseverance and tireless industry anywhere ever seen — ofiers 

 facilities for the transmigration of large numbers of people and stock, 

 as well as to furnish food, indispensable to those engaged in prospecting 

 and working the mines in vast sections of the great interior basin. 



Passing over the fifteen years which have elapsed since the gold dis- 

 coveiy, when the white population in the three States and four Terri- 

 tories' named did not exceed fifteen thousand, wo may safely estimate 

 that it has swelled at this date to near one million of souls. That so 

 numerous a people, occupying so varied a soil and climate, covering so 

 wide a region over which they are dispersed, remote from the commer- 

 cial facilities of older communities, should find it incumbent, as their 

 wants increase with the growth of the population, and the accumulation 

 of wealth permits the indulgence in more luxurious habits, to examine 

 their undeveloped resources for the means of supply, is the teaching of a 

 correct public economy. 



Hence the question of soil, adaptation of climate, and the available 

 supplies of labor with which to grow the raw material of both the arti- 

 cles of first necessity and of luxury, must be considered before conclusions 

 can be drawn as to the capacity of a country to support a large and 

 permanent pojjulation in a condition of continuous prosperity, exempt 

 from too exacting a tribute to foreign trade. 



Next in importance to the cost of its food, is the annual expenditure 

 of a people for clothing and the other various uses to which the textile 

 fibres are put after being made into cloths for bagging, tents, ship sails, 

 carpets, and general liousehold furniture and upholstery; and were an 

 inventory at any time to be taken of the two values, it would doubtless 

 be shown that the sum total invested in textiles would greatly exceed 

 the cost of the esculents. From this it may be seen how much the 

 wealth of a nation is affected b}^ the production within its territory of 

 its requirements of woven fibres. A nation, however, may be only a 

 purchaser of raw materials, and, by becoming its manufacturer, still 

 derive a considerable share of pi-osijcrity from the enterprise. This is 

 seen in the history of the cotton, silk, and woollen manufacture in Great 

 Britain, where neither cotton nor silk is grown, and wool but in limited 

 quantities. Were Great Britain the grower of the raw material she 

 spins and weaves, how vastly greater would be the accumulated profits 

 to her people. The United States are very large producers of both cot- 

 ton and wool; and the writer, in the course of thia^article. will endeavor 

 to show tliat within her limits there is a vast regicn that has both the 

 atmospheric and metereologieal conditions requisite to constitute her the 

 greatest silk producing country on the globe. 



The production of textile fibres has been deemed of such vital impor- 

 tance to the'people of California that the Legislature jiassed an Act oflfer- 



35 



