State Agricultural Society. 213 



than Sonoma county, and yet employs ten thousund men in cultivation 

 of the grape, and ten thousand more in the preparation of the wine for 

 market? We have now thirty-live million bearing vines growing on 

 forty-seven thousand acres. The average yield per acre for the grapes 

 is about sixty dollars, but the choice varieties will yield one hundred 

 dollars or more, and this too on our poorest soil. What more profit- 

 able or sure investment can a poor man desire? Uncle Sam gives 

 the land, and his own labor is sufficient to put out a vineyard from 

 which a sure annual revenue may be derived for himself and his children. 

 One of the strange peculiarities of our people, showing their singular 

 attachment to articles of foreign growth and manufacture, may be noted 

 in the fact that while we are sending wine to the four quarters of the 

 globe — a wine that we know to be pure juice of the grape — we imported 

 during last year four hundred and fifty-one thousand nine hundred and 

 forty-seven gallons of wine, costing, duties paid, more than five hundred 

 and fifty thousand dollars. 



Would any other people under the sun* be guilty of thus patronizing 

 a foreign product and market at the expense of their own, and that, too, 

 at their individual cost? 



Time is not afforded me to mention other industries, both in farming 

 and manufacturing, which at least bid fair to succeed, and which will be 

 watched by our people with the deepest interest. In our domestic 

 animals we are making a gradual but steady improvement. That we 

 are taking the pains with our herds which true economy would dictate, 

 however, cannot be contended. 



There are many yet who cannot realizo the fact that it costs just as 

 much and often more to raise a poor horse or cow than it does a good 

 one; that it costs just as much to raise a sheep which will shear three 

 pounds of inferior wool as it does a thoroughbred Merino or Cotswold, 

 which will yield a fleece of six pounds of superior quality. 



If one will pay the cost of raising, what an enormous profit must the 

 other yield? It' I was called upon to name the class of persons who 

 have done most to advance the best interests of the State, I should 

 unhesitatingly say, that according to their numbers, those men who 

 have emploj^ed their time and experience and embarked their capital in 

 the improvement of our domestic animals are entitled to this great dis- 

 tinction. From the improvement already effected, I think it safe to say 

 the value of our herds has been more than doubled. Let the improve- 

 ment go on until it shall be our boast to say, California raises none but 

 the best. 



To the ladies, whose splendid exhibition makes up one of the most 

 pleasing features of this great display of labor and skill, not being a 

 judge of the materials so artistically arranged by their fair hands, I only 

 feel competent to say, that for the general interest they have added to 

 the Fair they are certainly entitled to the thanks of the Society. On 

 the whole, we may justly claim to be making fair progress as a people. 

 But should we be content with this? No; not so long as we have an 

 idle man among us, or a physical want or comfort unsupplied; not so 

 long as we are dependent upon any other country for a single article 

 which we can produce; not so long as we have to depend upon other 

 countries for ships to carry our surplus products away. This shipping 

 can and must be supplied by ourselves. The world does not furnish 

 such materials for wooden and composite ships as are found on this 

 coast. 



