State Agricultural Society. 15 



vast quantities of unoccupied and uncultivated fertile lands and a climate 

 not excelled in the world? Does not farming pay here? There is no 

 place in the world where the average farmer does better, as we have 

 shown above, than in California. Is it not an agreeable and easy coun- 

 try to farm in? There is no country on earth where the farmer can 

 accomplish so much with so little labor. We have no snow, no cold, 

 freezing Winter seasons, lasting from four to six months every year, 

 during which the farmer is kept hard at work to provide the necessary 

 firewood to keep his household comfortable, and in housing and feeding 

 his stock, the hay and grain to secure and preserve which he has been 

 compelled to labor hard the previous six months of the year. We have 

 here but two seasons — the rainy season or seed time, and the dry season 

 or harvest. As a general thing there is not over forty days in the entire 

 year in which the farmer cannot without any inconvenience work in the 

 field; and we are warranted by facts in saying that the judicious and 

 economical general farmer can, in California, on say fifty acres of land, 

 and with his own individual labor and a single team, raise and market 

 more than twice the amount of general agricultural products, and at 

 double the net profits, as he could in the State of New York or any of 

 the Northern Atlantic States. 



If in addition to such a favorable showing of natural advantages for 

 California we could go forth and publish to the world another very 

 important fact, that we have within our borders from thirty million to 

 forty million acres of land equally as fertile and valuable and as favor- 

 ably located as much of that which is now under cultivation, and that 

 all this land was open to purchase in lots of from eighty to one hundred 

 and sixty acres each, and at the Government price of one dollar and 

 twenty-five cents per acre, we are satisfied it would not be three years 

 before our State would contain half a million of the happiest and most 

 prosperous agriculturists in the world, engaged in the cultivation of all 

 the various agricultural and horticultural products to which our soil and 

 climate are so well adapted. Then the idlers in our towns and cities 

 would seek and find constant and profitable employment in the country, 

 or would themselves become proprietors and independent cultivators of 

 farms and useful and valuable members of the community. Then our 

 valuable water privileges, of which we have more than all New England 

 combined, would be occupied and utilized, and the ring of the anvil and 

 hum of the spindle would be heard all over the State. Then, too, would 

 come commerce, and natural and permanent prosperity would return to 

 the cities. 



LAND MONOPOLIES. 



But what is the position of the millions of acres of uncultivated lands 

 throughout the State? Why are they uncultivated and unproductive? 

 Is it true that these lands are monopolized by individuals and held in 

 large bodies, of but little profit to their owners, and at such immeasurable 

 disadvantage to the State? What are the facts? By reference to some 

 statistics collected by the State Board of Equalization for the illustration 

 of another subject, we find that in the County of Colusa there were 

 assessed, in the year eighteen hundred and seventy-one, to six different 

 ownerships, one hundred and sixteen thousand six hundred and forty- 

 seven acres of land; in the County of Tehama, to five different owner- 

 ships, forty-eight thousand seven hundred and ten acres; in the County 

 of Butte, to five ownerships, sixty- four thousand three hundred and 

 fifty-six acres; in the County of Monterey, to eight ownerships, one 



