SECOND DISTRICT AGRICULTURAL ASSOCIATION. 449 



The policy of the ecclesiastical rulers had been to discourage the settle- 

 ment of the'country, deeming such course best calculated to advance their 

 chief object — the conversion of the savages. 



As early as 1831 wheat, barley, corn, beans, and peas were grown, the 

 entire product being valued at $86,284. 



Of domestic cattle, horses, mules and asses, sheep, goats, and swine there 

 were many thousands; besides many thousand wild horses and cattle. 



In those days a saddle horse was worth $10. (They had little use for 

 any other.) A fat ox sold for $5; a sheep for $2. Two sheep were worth 

 as much as a fat ox, and about the same as now. 



As we look back upon the picture of serene loveliness that must have 

 been presented in these great valleys, of waving grasses and wild grains 

 and flocks of animals grazing undisturbed, one almost regrets that the ava- 

 rice of man or the necessities of our race forced us to rudely disturb the 

 Arcadian happiness of the people who inhabited these shores in those 

 patriarchal days. 



But gold was discovered, and, as if by magic, the scene changed almost 

 as quickly as the shifting curtains of the sky in an approaching storm. 



From Mexico, from Europe, from the Atlantic States, from South Amer- 

 ica, and from China there came pouring into the port of San Francisco, 

 and down the western slope of the Sierras, in wagons and on foot, such a 

 mixed and heterogeneous mass of energetic, daring, and reckless men as 

 had never before invaded any part of the continent, except, possibly, in the 

 conquest of Mexico. 



In a very short time California contained a mixed population of nearly 

 a quarter of a million souls. They came not to build up a State, but to 

 gather riches and return to their homes. The climate did not bring them; 

 the exuberance of the soil did not bring them; it was gold, gold, gold. All 

 else faded before the highly wrought imaginations of these adventurous 

 spirits. Where sixty bushels of wheat would grow to the acre, they paid 

 $40 per barrel for flour, and pork, and shipped it around Cape Horn; pota- 

 toes, almost indigenous to the soil, were worth a half a dollar a pound; a 

 pair of coarse boots was worth $40, and one who indulged the luxury of 

 high heels and fancy tops paid $100. An insignificant storeroom, con- 

 structed of rough boards, in San Francisco rented for $3,000 per month; 

 the old Parker House, which some of you remember, rented for $120,000 

 per annum; lumber, that could be easily produced on the coast and in the 

 mountains, rose to $500 per thousand feet; the " El Dorado," a canvas tent 

 of moderate size, used for a gambling saloon, brought $40,000 per annum, 

 and the United States Government paid $7,000 per month for a Custom 

 House. Wages were $1 per hour, and skilled labor brought $20 per day; 

 as high as 15 per cent interest per month was paid with good security. 

 People paid these enormous prices, wages, rents, and interest, and still 

 accumulated immense fortunes. 



In the diggings the miners found themselves without the means of effect- 

 ively administering the law and were in fact a law unto themselves. In 

 San Francisco the lawlessness of certain classes, and the prostitution of the 

 powers of government to the uses of the lawless, forced into existence that 

 historic and remarkable organization known as the Vigilance Committee, 

 and even as late as 1855 it exercised its functions. It tried and executed 

 criminals; it defied the writ of habeas corpus, and even placed under 

 arrest a Judge of the Supreme Court who issued it. 



When I look back upon that period and remember the motive that per- 

 vaded the people, and that they came not to build and stay but to gather 

 up and carrv away, it is to my mind one of the grandest episodes in our 

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