State Agricultural Society. 89 



capital in exchange for their labor and skill to bring education, comfort, 

 and advancement within their reach. This has been the American 

 theory. Under it the industrial classes have developed men of inven- 

 tive genius, ranking among the most eminent of the industrial benefac- 

 tors of mankind, and furnished constant improvements in every branch 

 of mechanics. It has fostered independence of labor; it has prevented 

 class distinctions; it has made ambition and elevation the right of every 

 one; it has been the parent of virtue, intelligence, and patriotism; it 

 cannot be superseded andihis country remain a Republic, where rights 

 and benefits are reciprocal. 



I am not of those who believe that the stagnation of business here 

 has been caused by our use of a metallic currency. Were it so business 

 should have revived rapidly as gold and greenbacks came to equality in 

 value. We have escaped the fluctuations that alternately excited and 

 depressed business in the East, and changed values so rapidly that no 

 fortune was stable. Except so far as our gold may have been shipped 

 to speculate in the gambling operations of the New York money 

 markets, we have been saved from the losses entailed b}~ a depreciating- 

 currency, inevitably followed at last by depreciating property. Bat the 

 speculations of the gold room have not been more excited and unreason- 

 ing than many of those which for years have captivated our people, and 

 drained us dry of our wealth. This State seems to have overlooked the 

 necessity of developing its own imperial mineral resources to invest 

 millions in every distant bubble that folly or fraud flashed before the 

 public eye. What untold wealth our people have buried in Mexico! 

 How many productive mines would have been opened at home; how 

 many farms made fertile out of waste lands, with the labor and cost of 

 Eraser River! With recent White Pine it is too soon to say that our 

 people have learned to resist such excitements; but it is indisputable 

 that the legitimate business of the State will languish, and its growth in 

 wealth and population be retarded until such unhealthy excitements 

 lose their power over our people. 



There are causes beyond our control which have injured the growth 

 of our State. Surface mines that yielded largely are worked out. 

 Partial droughts have injured our harvests. We have helped to popu- 

 late neighboring States and Territories. Put the causes I have named 

 are the results of our own improvidence, recklessness, and cupidity. We 

 may make the next decade tell a different story, or we may still lag 

 behind our younger sisters in the Union in growth and prosperity. 



It is gratifying to know that our great resources are unimpaired, that 

 our land is fertile as Eden, our opportunities unexcelled. We have at 

 our feet all the elements of a grand empire. We have but to build with 

 the materials shaped to our hands. Our climate and soil are varied 

 infinitely, and produce in perfection whatever elsewhere is a specialty. 

 Need I so say with this display around us? Here is the lavish abun- 

 dance of cultivated nature — the fruits and flowers of this productive soil 

 and genial clime. Our State will produce cereals and vegetables of every 

 kind, fruit of ev^ery variety including those of the tropics — the orange as 

 well as the apple; the date and fig as well as plum and peach; the grape 

 for raisins and wine; the mulberry for silks; even the tea and coffee that 

 we use; the finest wool in the world; coal, and granite, and timber; 

 horses, and sheep, and cattle in perfection; and all this makes the future 

 of the State to the agriculturist full of encouragement. Here is but the 



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