SECOND DISTRICT AGRICULTURAL ASSOCIATION. 451 



them their household gods and making homes. The tonnage arriving 

 and departing from San Francisco was exceeded only by three American 

 cities, New York, Boston, and New Orleans. We were already exporters 

 of flour, oats, and barley, potatoes, tallow, wheat, lumber, and other prod- 

 ucts besides gold and silver. 



Our public schools, beginning in 1851 with eleven thousand children, now 

 had thirty-five thousand. 



The period of gold mining had had its rise, and although, perhaps, not 

 on the decline, it was fast losing its prestige as a controlling industry. 

 Already it was seen that a State could not be built up out of an aggrega- 

 tion of mining camps; that agriculture and manufactures were at the 

 foundation of permanent prosperity; that nature had strewn her gifts 

 bountifully over the face of California, and those people were fortunate who 

 were here to embrace them. The grandeur of her mountains; the phe- 

 nomenal fertility of her soil; the glories of her varied climate; her noble 

 rivers; her beautiful valleys and her charms for physical existence seized 

 upon the judgment and imagination of those early people, and chained 

 them spell-bound to the soil. 



With this change came the second discovery of California. I do not 

 think any one yet began to see, even in dreams, the ultimate greatness of 

 the State. With that instinctive appreciation of a good thing when he 

 sees it, the American settler had already pitched his tent here to stay, but 

 with no very clear idea of the future of the State. 



To the gold diggings and the quartz mining, now also beginning to be 

 developed, and to pastoral pursuits, were added agriculture and manufac- 

 tures. 



From a product of less than forty thousand bushels of the cereals, as 

 shown by the census of 1850, we had for the census of 1860 over twelve 

 million bushels; and for 1870, another decade, over twenty-eight million 

 bushels; and in 1884, the product reached nearly sixty-eight million 

 bushels, of which the wheat product alone was over forty-three million 

 bushels. 



Traveling parallel with the wheat interest, was the wool interest. In 1854 

 we produced one hundred and seventy-five thousand pounds; in 1860 it had 

 reached over three million pounds; in 1870, over twenty million pounds; 

 in 1880, nearly forty-seven million pounds, and had been as high as fifty- 

 six million pounds in 1876. 



Wheat growing in the United States was unnaturally stimulated between 

 1875 and 1880 by a series of crop failures in Europe, which caused a de- 

 mand never before or since so great. 



The world's product went on without any diminution in the United 

 States, and prices have fallen on the farm from a little over $1 per bushel, 

 to a trifle over 83 cents, showing a decline of over 20 per cent. The value 

 of an acre of wheat has fallen over 22 per cent. The average value per 

 acre since 1884 has been a little over $8. 



Keeping pace with agriculture, our manufactures have developed in like 

 proportion. 



In forty years we have stepped to the twelfth rank of the manufacturing 

 States of the Union. 



In agriculture we rank first, considering our wines and fruits. 



In wool growing we rank about third, and we grow one sixth of the prod- 

 uct of the United States. 



In the production of gold we rank first. 



I am not permitted to detain you in detailed evidences of the marvelous 

 growth of the State. There are interests of large import not known even 



