76 Transactions of the 



cedents, and sectionalism were arrayed against necessity and our deter- 

 mined will, we triumphed, and but twenty short years ago the ninth of 

 the present month we date the commencement of our existence as a 

 State. 



Well may the California pioneers who took part in the events of those 

 times delight to keep green the memory of that day! Well may they 

 celebrate the anniversary of that day with bonfires and illuminations, 

 with patriotic poems and orations! — for to them the ninth of September 

 stands next in importance to the fourth of July. Well may they be 

 proud to number among their members some of the first men and most 

 distinguished officers in the nation, and well may they feel compli- 

 mented when some of those officers travel over three thousand miles to 

 join them in their celebration. 



But we have remarked that a few short years ago agriculture was 

 unknown in California. At the time of her admission as a State no one 

 was found so wild as to imagine that she had any other value than for 

 her mines. To-day, how different her position as an industrial State! 

 Our mines, though still valuable, are among the least of our industrial 

 resources, and agriculture is the great all-sustaining, all-enriching, and 

 all-important industry. From the least, we have, in the short space of 

 twenty years, grown to be one of the most important agricultural States 

 of the nation. In the production of fruits, wines, wool, and silk, we 

 undoubtedly stand the first in the Union. Our fruit list already 

 embraces almost every variety known to the world. The hardier kinds 

 grow to perfection in all portions of the State, from the northern and 

 more mountainous regions to the warm tropical climes of the southern 

 valleys. In those valleys, and in almost all the valleys of the State 

 protected from the direct ocean winds and the sweep of the winds of 

 the broad plains, all the tropical and semi-tropical varieties flourish and 

 come to a degree of perfection not excelled in any of the fruit-producing 

 islands of the tropical oceans. The eagerness with which our neighbors 

 of the Atlantic slope seek the California fruits shipped across the conti- 

 nent, shows the superiority of those fruits over those of their own 

 growth. When we shall have greater facilities and more perfect 

 arrangements for shipping those fruits, with cheaper freights, as we will 

 have in a few years, here is an opening for a trade that is destined to 

 bring back to California no small portion of the gold that in former 

 days was shipped out at the Golden Gate in payment for these very 

 articles imported. 



In this connection allow me to remark that there is no longer any 

 excuse for permitting fruits of any kind to go to waste for want of a 

 profitable market. If the} 7 cannot be marketed green, let them be dried, 

 and there is a demand in the Eastern States for all that can be thus pre- 

 served, at highly remunerative prices. The variableness of our climate 

 in different localities, if we choose to avail ourselves of the advantages 

 thus offered by nature, will enable us to enjoy the luxuiy of green 

 fruits the year round. Thus the same varieties of apples that ripen in 

 the earlj 7 Fall in the valleys, when grown at an elevation of fifteen 

 hundred feet up the Sierra JSTevadas, do not rqjen until midwinter, and 

 if grown at from six hundred to one thousand feet greater altitude, 

 will keep well until our markets are bountifully supplied with the early 

 varieties of the following Spring. This is no wild statement founded 

 upon mere theory or conjecture, but its truth has been thoroughly dem- 

 onstrated by actual fact. 



It is also ascertained that the fruit produced at a high altitude on the 



