STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 167 



and went away empty, because there was nothing to spare, now come 

 light because so little is needed, and stream out of the Golden Gate an 

 endless procession of deep-freighted argosies, carrying the treasure that 

 the world covets, and the bread that the hungry demand, and better 

 than all this, law has obtained the supremac}' that belongs onty to the 

 age when man has learned to control himself — order reigns in the hearts 

 and by the will of the people ; the lesson is being learned — alas ! it takes 

 centuries and blood to learn it well — that self-government, to be other 

 than a failure, must be at once the most unlimited freedom and the most 

 absolute sovereignty. Everywhere education is fostered, school houses 

 are built, and occupied too, and side by side with them arise on every 

 hand the altars erected to the living God. 



With all this prosperity before us and around us, it becomes us now to 

 inquire whence it has come, and to whom we are indebted for it ? The 

 answers are already in your hearts. It has come from the God-blessed 

 soil, and it has been developed by the strong arms and the brave hearts 

 of the farmers and miners of California. In golden grain, or in virgin 

 gold, it matters not which, they have wrested wealth, beyond the dream 

 of avarice, from nature's bosom, and sent it forth to enrich and bless the 

 world. Nowhere else has such a mighty influence been exercised, for as 

 that tide of wealth has flowed abroad it has entered and expanded all 

 the channels of business, and all the avenues where capital does its won- 

 derful work. A thousand millions of gold have swelled the coffers of 

 the old States and the old world. Property has been largely increased 

 in value everywhere, and thousands across the continent or the oceans 

 have found themselves enriched by the advance, without ever dreaming 

 that it was the sweat and toil of Californians that was thus spreading, 

 like God's blessing, over the just and the unjust in every land upon which 

 the sun shines. 



A thousand millions! Can j t ou comprehend such a sum? Does not 

 the mind falter as it attempts to grasp it? And if its simple statement 

 is so incomprehensible, how shall we bow in humility if we undertake 

 to follow it in its world-developing w T ork ? It must not be forgotten 

 that it is never idle. Onward, and ever onward is its law. Used, it is 

 a blessing — unused, it is a curse. Ceaseless activity is its greatest 

 characteristic, and by night and by day it keeps up its eternal march. 

 The rain that the clouds gather, and drop as fast as gathered, where it 

 is most needed, that it may clothe the earth with beauty and with fruit, 

 and then, when that end is accomplished, commence drawing it back 

 from all the little channels where its work of blessing has carried it, that 

 it may again, with full reservoirs, renew its life-giving showers upon the 

 earth beneath, is the type and the representative of that grand circula- 

 tion of capital that gives life and power to the business world. Through 

 all the avenues of commerce it circulates to the centres that attract it. 

 Accumulated there, as in reservoirs, it invites drafts upon it from all 

 that need. The great manufactory comes and presents its claim, and 

 becomes the means by which a shower of blessings descends upon the 

 thousands that depend upon it for subsistence. Commerce asks a sub- 

 sidy, and accumulation gladly answers its demands as it whispers to 

 itself, "I scatter but to gather again." Great railroads present their 

 claims, with arguments so irresistible that even cupidity finds its greatest 

 gratification in parting with its hoards to help them onward, and smiles 

 complacentlj- as it remembers that the vast increase of popular wealth 

 that they cause increases also, an hundredfold, the harvest it will reap 

 from the seed it thus sows. And so, through every department of 



