State Agricultural Society. 49 



profitable manufacture of sugar. The process of making sugar from 

 beets is as easily learned by any farmer and may be as successfully prac- 

 ticed by bim as the process of making cheese from milk. 



DAIRY FARMING. 



Daily farming, carefully and properly conducted, has always been one 

 of the most profitable of the agricultural industries of the United States, 

 and in no State has it paid better than in California. Among our most 

 prosperous and wealthy farmers are those who, in one way or another, 

 have made a specialty of dairy farming. The people of no other State 

 have paid so dearly for their milk, butter, and cheese as those of Cali- 

 fornia, As prices have rated heretofore, it costs an ordinary family 

 more to pay their milk, butter, and cheese bills than to pay for all the 

 flour, potatoes/ beans, onions, and other strictly home produced agricul- 

 tural necessaries they consume; and yet we are safe in the assertion that 

 there is not over one farmer in the State that makes a practice of pro- 

 ducing butter or cheese for sale to one hundred almost exclusively 

 engaged in raising wheat and barley for the markets. While we are 

 large exporters of wheat and barley, we still import annually over one 

 million dollars worth of butter and cheese. Such are the inconsistencies 

 of the California system of agriculture. We would most earnestly 

 recommend our farmers to keep more cows, hogs, and sheep on their 

 farms and cultivate less acres to grain. We are satisfied that such a 

 change in the practices of the agriculturists generally would result in 

 greater pecuniary gains, and at the same time increase, rather than 

 decrease, the fertility and productiveness of the soil. 



A few acres well seeded to alfalfa or Chile clover will, in this country, 

 afford a good living to almost an incredible number of stock. We have 

 noticed almost universally increased evidences of thrift and prosperity 

 surrounding those farmers who have already adopted this system over 

 those who still adhere to the old plan of producing exclusively wheat 

 and barley and buying everything else consumed on their place or in 

 their families. 



CALIFORNIA WINES AND GRAPES. 



There has for a number of years past been a sensible change for the 

 better in our native wines. This has been evident in the improvement 

 from year to year of the samples exhibited at our County, District, and 

 State Fairs. Another evidence of such improvement is found in the 

 increased demand for our wines for general consumption and a correspond 

 ing decrease in the demand for those of foreign brands. This improved 

 quality of our wines is the result not so much from au}^ great improvement 

 in the kind or quality of our grapes as in the S3 r stem of making and 

 handling the wines themselves. Our grape growers have learned by 

 experience that some skill is required to make a good and uniform quality 

 of wine, and that in the absence of this skill and the necessary means 

 and facilities for keeping and handling the juice of the grape until such 

 quality of wine is secured, it is less trouble and more profitable for them 

 to sell their grapes to those w r ho possess that skill and the required 

 means and facilities. Wine making compames have been formed in many 

 localities, and wine factories and cellars established, at which the grapes 

 of the surrounding country are purchased, carefully assorted and classed, 



