STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 337 



Sir John Sinclair, of England, who, eighty years ago, first inaugurated 

 agricultural societies, urged upon legislators the necessity and im- 

 portance of these societies, and advocated all possible diffusion of 

 knowledge on the subject. This great benefactor of agriculture, Sinclair, 

 pressed upon the farmer to preserve the fertility of the soil j free it from 

 the superfluous moisture at the least expense ; gather and apply the best 

 fertilizers; procure the best instruments of husbandry; select the best 

 stock, and feed in the most judicious manner; secure the harvest in the 

 most economical mode; separate the grain from the straw with 

 economy; in short, perform all the operations of agriculture in the most 

 judicious mode. This advice was given eighty years ago, and embraces 

 all the advice a farmer needs. Undoubtedly, Sinclair scarcely dreamed 

 at that time that at this day the iron hoi-se would traverse this continent 

 from ocean to ocean, throe thousand miles, greeting on this coast high 

 civilization ; transporting machinery for husbandry that will cultivate 

 twenty-five acres per day, and harvest and bag for market the pro- 

 duct of an equal number of acres. 



Agriculture or the products of the soil are now fostered by all nations, 

 and most wisely so. Agriculture is a mighty giant, the life and basis of 

 all interests and wealth, without which nations would sink into oblivion ; 

 and the nation or government that fosters most the agricultural pro- 

 ductions, becomes not only the word's benefactor, but increases her 

 wealth and power. This is the histoiy of all nations, both ancient and 

 modern , and, on the contrary, where legislators have neglected agricul- 

 tural interests, those countries are backward in wealth, intelligence and 

 prosperity. California legislators, in eighteen hundred and sixty-five, 

 comprehended this wise idea, and passed an Act granting State 

 premiums to the amount of one hundred thousand dollars for the follow- 

 ing articles : Sorghum sugar, flax, cotton, tobacco, hops, raw silk, cotton 

 drilling, burlaps, hemp, carpeting, linen, calico, cotton sheeting, pilot 

 cloths, blankets, ingrain carpeting, wool sacks, woollen drawers, woollen 

 undershirts, cottonized flax, mens' boots, tea, coffee, assorted cordage, 

 tar, rosin, turpentine, printing paper, best book on the industrial 

 resources, wine bitters, linseed oil, cotton seed oil, cotton plantation, 

 indigo, rice. 



Too much cannot be said in favor of agricultural statistics. They 

 form the key which unlocks the hidden treasures of agricultural produc- 

 tions, reveals to the farmer and merchant the great laws of demand and 

 supply, of tillage and barter, enabling both to work out a safe and 

 healthy prosperity. There is no logic so desirable or so irresistible as 

 the logic of statistics, and perhaps particularly so in California, where 

 the farmer and producer are so dependent upon a foreign market, and 

 often — quite too often — upon the speculator, who pockets, at the farmer's 

 sacrifice, the lion's share of profit. Farmers now in this State are in a 

 condition to hold their crops, and they should do here as they do in the 

 great West. Let the speculator meet him at his door and bargain for 

 his crop. Farmers have now but three things to do: Cultivate judi- 

 : ciously ; hold on to their crops, and vote for greenbacks. Excuse me, 

 ; ladies and gentlemen, for mentioning greenbacks, they will soon speak 

 for themselves. The laws of exchange and currency are like the laws of 

 nature, they must be obeyed. The commerce of the world is dependent 

 on agricultural productions. A scarcity of these, or their superabund- 

 ance, affects the exchanges of the world; therefore, it behooves the pro- 



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