78 Transactions op the 



Nevada, Bugbey, of Sacramento, and Chalmers, Dickson, Brooks, Car- 

 penter, Weatherwax, and others, of El Dorado. The establishments of 

 each of these gentlemen, comprising as they do, extensive and highly 

 cultivated and productive vineyards and orchards, together with commo- 

 dious and well appointed wine cellars and other buildings, and all the 

 paraphernalia of prosperous mountain farms, may well be pointed out as 

 worthy of the pride of any State. They are really a credit to California, 

 and each* is to its enterprising proprietors a valuable fortune. Here and 

 there, scattered through the foothills, are many other smaller but pros- 

 perous vineyards and orchards, but these are named as examples. And 

 in this connection allow me to state a fact that is not generally realized 

 even by those supposed to be well informed. • There is on the western 

 slope of the Sierra Nevadas, a strip of country about twenty miles wide 

 by over one hundred long, in which there may be selected hundreds of 

 thousands of farms, equally favorable as to location, soil, climate, and all 

 the other natural requisites as are the farms above named. All that is 

 wanted to make these new locations as prolific, as beautiful and valuable 

 as those referred to, is the same amount of money, skill, and labor 

 bestowed upon them that these men have bestowed upon their valuable 

 homes. I will say further that a very large portion of all this land has 

 been surveyed, and can be bought of the Government and the railroad 

 company for from one dollar and a quarter to two dollars and a half per 

 acre. Here are homes for the million, and those who under such circum- 

 stances remain long without homesteads are without excuse. 



Our wool clip the last year was a little over fifteen million pounds, 

 while this year it will exceed twenty million. Never before did our 

 wool bear so good a reputation or bring so high a price in the markets 

 as at present. By the cultivation of alfalfa or Chile clover upon our 

 sheep ranges the number of sheep may be greatly increased on the 

 same area of ground and the quantity enhanced and quality improved. 

 Silk culture is being entered into in all parts of the State, and bids fair 

 at no distant day to become one of our most important industries. It is 

 estimated that there are now in this State two million five hundred 

 thousand mulberry trees, and the number will be greatly augmented 

 during the next Winter. During the past year a silk manufacturing 

 company, with abundant capital, has been organized in San Francisco, 

 and buildings for the factory arc nearly completed. This will stimulate 

 the industry by furnishing constant home market for the product, the 

 want of which has been a serious drawback to it heretofore. 



It would give me great pleasure to go through the list of our agri- 

 cultural products and show the rapid increase in each from year to 

 year, but space and time allowed in an opening address will not per- 

 mit. The whole subject of agriculture will be so thoroughly discussed 

 by the able speakers that are to address you from this stand during 

 the week, that it seems unnecessary for me to claim your attention 

 longer. 



I feel called upon, however, brieiky to refer to a subject which at the 

 present time is of greater interest to California and all her producing 

 and industrial classes than any other. It is an evil which more than all 

 others discourages and defeats California energy and enterprise, and 

 disheartens and opposes California industry and labor. I refer to the 

 exorbitant and unwarranted demands of capitalists for the use of money. 



In earlier days, when mining was the leading industry of the State 

 and gold its only product and export — all the necessaries of life being 

 imported — when men with pick, shovel, and rocker, could take from the 



