70 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



bushels of wheat, twelve million gallons of wine, and ten million pounds 

 of wool. Other agricultural industries have all been equally favorable. 



This is not a bad showing for a State which, but ten years since, was 

 considered of no value but for the gold that could be dug from our mines. 

 In consequence of this great prosperity of agriculture, and the conse- 

 quent and corresponding prosperity of all other industries, an unusual 

 and unprecedented impetus has been given to works of public improve- 

 ment, and we find ourselves in the midst of an era of universal activity; 

 every class in the community seems to have become impressed with the 

 necessity of greater facilities for travel from point to point, in the State, 

 and for the transportation of the products of the land from place to 

 place, and from the points of production to the seaboard, from which 

 they may find the markets of the world. New steamboat routes are 

 being opened up and old ones improved and supplied with a better class 

 of steamers. New railroad routes are projected to-day; and to-morrow, 

 or almost before the communities through which the roads are to pass have 

 heard of said project, the iron horse speeds through the country, 

 announcing the completion of the work. 



The great question of handling grain, whether in bulk or in sacks, 

 which has interested all classes of the community, and especially the 

 farmers, for years past, is now being taken hold of by a company of- 

 enterprising capitalists, and the present prospect indicates that the day 

 is not far distant when this great drawback upon the profits of grain 

 raising will be fully removed, and that our immense grain crops will be 

 handled with the same facility, and with equal econom}-, as in the Atlantic 

 States. The great crops of the West, and the necessity for economy in 

 the mode of handling and sending them to market, has caused the intro- 

 duction of a system of elevating the grain from steamers and freighting 

 vessels, from cars and other means of conveyance, into warehouses and 

 mills, by means of machinery run by steam, thus saving to the farmer a 

 much better profit on the production than could be saved to him by the 

 modes of handling formerly practiced there, and still practiced here. When 

 Ave shall have introduced these facilities here, and brought them into gen- 

 eral use, a very large percent, of the profits of the crops, which now go to 

 the middle men or jobbers, will be retained in the bauds of the farmer, 

 and will be laid out in the general improvements of the country. 



Every \*ear adds some new and important labor-saving machine to the 

 list of agricultural implements and machinery. The present year is 

 likely to be marked by an innovation, the importance of which to the 

 prosperity of the country can be but little less than the invention of the 

 steam engine, or the application of steam to the propelling of vessels or 

 railroad cars. I refer to the invention of the steam plow. The subject 

 of applying steam to the tilling of the soil has attracted the attention of 

 inventors in nearly all civilized countries for years past; but a citizen of 

 California is likely to be the first to succeed in the accomplishment of this 

 grand achievement. 



We have tw'o competitors for the high honor of inventing and putting 

 into practical use a travelling steam plow. One, it is true, has as yet 

 only built a model, but the principle upon which it is constructed, and 

 the simplicity of the application of the principle to the end required, 

 gives good judges a high degree of confidence in its final success. The 

 other has built a powerful working machine, said to be capable of plow- 

 ing, sowing and planting from forty to fifty acres of grain per day. 

 This latter machine was tried, to the entire satisfaction of many skilful 

 mechanics and practical farmers, at the late fair of the -Mechanics' Insti- 



