STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 163 



only successful, but highly remunerative. Let these varieties be sought 

 out and cultivated, and we have here opened up a market that cannot 

 be glutted by a few wagon loads, but will continue to grow in propor- 

 tion as the people East learn the richness and delicacy of our California 

 fruits. 



Experiments in tea culture, now being made in El Dorado County by 

 a large company of Japanese, who have immigrated to our State for that 

 purpose within the last year, are giving evidence of success beyond all 

 expectation. The plants, set out under most disadvantageous circum- 

 stances, late in the season, are growing much better than in Japan, and 

 the question of the successful production of tea in all our foot-hills is 

 fully settled already, the only question remaining to be decided being 

 the quality of the tea produced, and the experiment, so far, gives good 

 indication of a favorable answer to this question. 



The production of beet sugar has been entered upon in good earnest 

 by a company of capitalists, near this city, and bids fair to become one 

 of the permanent and profitable industries of the State. The fact that 

 California annually pays for sugars and molasses, imported, over four 

 million dollars, makes their undertaking one of great interest, and the 

 success of the enterprise will be hailed as a new era in the agriculture of 

 the State. 



The culture of silk is another new industry of great moment to the 

 State. The people of the United States pay annually for the silk worn 

 by them over seventy millions of dollars, and these silks are all the pro- 

 ducts of foreign countries. In connection with this fact, how significant, 

 how immensely valuable become the unmistakable evidences of the 

 certain success of this industry in our State, presented to our eyes in 

 the grand exhibition of cocoons in this hall to-night. A few years since, 

 our Legislature, recognizing the importance of the introduction of this 

 industry into our State, passed an Act offering liberal premiums for the 

 production of mulberry trees and cocoons within a certain number of 

 years from the date of that Act. Accepting the promise of the State as 

 having been made in good faith, a number of enterprising individuals 

 entered into the tree and silk culture in good earnest, and the result is 

 that they now have and will have demands against the State to the 

 amount, in the aggregate, of from twenty-five thousand dollars to thirty 

 thousand dollars, while the value to the State of their enterprises — 

 proving, as they have done, that California has not a rival in the world 

 in the successful cultivation of this rich and beautiful product — cannot 

 be measured by millions. Under such circumstances, the faith of the 

 State having been pledged, it should be honestly redeemed. " The 

 promise having been made, must be kept." 



I cannot, in justice to this society, and in justice to the memory of 

 the dead, leave this subject without bearing testimony in a humble way 

 to the value of the services to this State of the father of this industry 

 in California — the late Louis Prevost. 



Prevost was a Frenchman by birth. He left his native land and came 

 to this country because he loved our republican institutions. Settling in 

 Long Island (New York), he engaged in the nursery business. In eigh- 

 teen hundred and fortyjaine he came to this State, and early engaged in 

 the same business in Sot Jos6. 



In August, eighteen hundred and fifty-six, a committee of this society 

 visited the place of Prevost, and in their report use the following lan- 

 guage : 



" The committee cannot pass the garden of Prevost without a par- 



