San Joaquin Valley District Agricultural Society. 617 



Humphrey Davy, Humboldt, Sir John Sinclair, Baron Liebig, and others 

 of our own country, has made it the subject of scientific experiment and 

 investigation, until it is entitled to rank among the most interesting as 

 well as most useful of human pursuits. Machinery for its successful 

 prosecution has been improved, so that those who twenty years ago 

 would handle the scythe, sickle, flail, and old fashioned plow submis- 

 sively, now feel indignant at the bare mention of such implements of 

 labor in presence of the reaper, the mower, the header, the thrashing 

 machine, and the gang plow. 



our adaptabilities. 



Of all the soil upon which agriculture may be prosecuted as a science, 

 none appears better adapted to realize its highest attainable perfection 

 than this valley. The experience of fifteen years shows that a good 

 crop can be calculated upon seven of every ten years; the other three 

 never entirely fail. 



California needs no better encouragement to her immigration than 

 the yearly reviews of her exports and imports. Those who dreaded the 

 new El Dorado for its exposures and privations when the discovery of gold 

 was made, may naturally wonder at its first quarter century's develop- 

 ment. Had the early rangers, who used the foothills and bottoms of 

 the San Joaquin Valley as pasture for their stock, ever dreamed of it, 

 we should, to-day, have found this immense domain in the hands of a 

 different people. But it was otherwise ordained, and when the dreams 

 of independence vanished, as the placer failed which inspired them, men 

 necessarily turned their attention to the cultivation of the soil. Ceres, 

 with her sheaves of golden wheat; Pomona, with her rich harvests of 

 fruit; and Pan, with his numerous flocks, were the deities which suc- 

 ceeded to the ardent, but often, alas! illusive worship of Midas. 



Agriculture has made California what she is to-day. Her greatest 

 wealth is in her two immense valleys — the one commencing among the 

 snows of Shasta, whence it stretches to the Bay of San Francisco, the 

 other springing amid perfumed orange and lemon groves, and advanc- 

 ing for hundreds of miles to meet its sister, where the waters of Suisun 

 widen to receive it. 



SAN JOAQUIN VALLEY. 



Of this latter valley I am to speak. From the land fed by its beauti- 

 ful river comes this grand display of life supporting stores. Before such 

 an exhibition famine and disaster shrink back appalled. We forget 

 them in the survey, grateful that no desolation like that of Bengal and 

 Caesarea; no winged pest like that which has just swept away the crops 

 of our interior territories, have scourged our favored soil. 



What is the sight that greets the eye when traversing this valley? 

 Wheat — the cereal that stands in the van of all others — stretching for 

 miles along the plains and slopes. This silent expositor of thrift, of 

 plenty, of success, in unmistakable language says: the means of life for 

 ourselves and starving millions in less favored regions are here. You 

 who hold the rod of empire, who in the cities engage in trade, in me- 

 chanical and professional life, derive your daily bread from this soil. 

 Here the grandest of all industries is pursued with abundant success. 



78— (asri) 



