STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 219 



FOURTEENTH ANNUAL REVIEW 



OF THE 



Raisin, Dried Fruit, Prune, Almond, Walnut, Peanut, Comb and Ex- 

 tracted Honey Product of California, for the Year 1888. 



By George W. Meade & Co., San Francisco. 



The year 1888, now about closing, has been an auspicious one for Cali- 

 fornia, and great prosperity has existed throughout the length and breadth 

 of the State. It has not been a superficial prosperity, but one that has 

 been founded on merit and based on a soil and climate which produce the 

 fruits, the wines, and the grains of the earth in abundance. There is not, 

 to-day, in all the broad United States of America, or in any section of the 

 world, a community of people so thoroughly well-to-do and so prosperous, 

 generally, as the people of the favored State of California. In no other 

 country does the rich man live any better, if as well, and in no other 

 country is the working man so well fed, so well paid, and so well clad as 

 in this genial climate of the Golden State. 



When we read of the blizzards, the cyclones, the long six months of 

 winter which cover the Eastern States, and in which simple " existence" 

 becomes a fight to the poorer classes, it is with pride and with pleasure that 

 we turn to the condition of the working man of California. The oppor- 

 tunity which this State offers to the poorer classes of the overcrowded 

 eastern country in making themselves comfortable and happy homes is 

 being availed of now quite freely. No one who witnesses the wonderful 

 immigration to this State can for a moment doubt the advantages which 

 it offers, and, to any one having a knowledge of California, this is not at 

 all surprising. 



The products of this State are not confined to corn, nor to wheat, but 

 they combine the products of fruits and of cereals, both of the temperate 

 and tropic zones of almost every nation on the face of the earth, so that 

 the hastening of the poorer classes to make their homes in this State causes 

 no surprise. Throughout California there are still hundreds of thousands 

 of acres of fine lands suitable for the cultivation of the raisin, the almond, 

 the walnut, the fig, the grape, the prune, as well as peaches, pears, apricots, 

 and in fact almost everything that can be grown anywhere. The industri- 

 ous poor man who is thrifty, on ten or twelve acres can make himself a 

 comfortable and delightful home in this favored State. He will have no 

 long winters to look forward to; no cyclones, no blizzards, no thunder, no 

 lightning, and no sunstrokes. 



While California is now developing her natural resources faster than 

 ever before known, what the future of this great State will be twenty-five 

 years from now no one at this moment dares to say. With the exception 

 of New York, that it will be the most wealthy, and perhaps the most pop- 

 ulous State in the Union, does not admit of much question. We cannot 

 ourselves see how it can be otherwise. 



