90 Transactions of the 



dawn of a golden future, where true prosperity will be founded on the 

 sure basis of exhaustless agricultural resources, by patient, intelligent 

 industry. But each decade shows tbat in the "United States, notwith- 

 standing the abundance and cheapness of virgin soil, the advantages of 

 climate, the increased facilities for transportation to available markets, 

 and the independent condition of our farmers and planters, tbat the ratio 

 of increase of agricultural products of the United States is in general far 

 below that of the increment of population, accession of territory, exten- 

 sion of commerce, manufactures, internal improvements, and the modern 

 appliances for economizing labor. The first employment of man in a 

 new State is the cultivation of the soil, save in exceptional cases. As 

 population multiplies, industries become diversified. Providence so 

 orders it, that the cultivation of a small part comparatively of the earth's 

 surface will sustain its inhabitants, and so gives opportunity for the 

 multiplied employments that characterize civilization. Hence, as com- 

 munities increase in density and prosperity, numbers resort to the arts, 

 to manufactures, to mining, and other useful pursuits. As these indus- 

 tries multiply, the demand for the produce of the earth annually 

 increases; and to meet this demand a corresponding tillage and appli- 

 cation of labor to the soil, guided by science, intelligence, and modern 

 improvement, necessarily follows. Therefore, while agriculture is the 

 basis of all prosperity of the State, it is itself dependent for its highest 

 prosperity on the development of other interests to furnish profitable 

 markets. In this view it is a matter of congratulation that the manu- 

 facturing interests of this State have vindicated their ability to live and 

 compete with their foreign rivals, and that some of them have even com- 

 menced to make their way in eastern markets. Our woolen mills, our 

 great boot and shoe factories, our sugar refining, our manufactures of 

 wooden ware, cordage, leather, carriages, iron, etc., are all tributary to 

 the agricultural interest, in the most profitable form. The resources of 

 the State in this direction are beyond estimate, with all Asia and Central 

 and South America for a market. 



Our mines of precious metals, especially heavy placer washings, are 

 little understood and appreciated as a source of permanent wealth. The 

 light placers have been exhausted. They gave sudden wealth to a fleet- 

 ing population, which had not the skill or energy to discover or work 

 the great gravel deposits laid ages ago in the deep beds of ancient 

 streams, and which are now hidden by later-formed hills and cut through 

 by more recent streams. Hundreds of feet below the roots of hoary 

 trees the gold store reposes, requiring patience and energy to find and 

 develop it. But it is the result of my observation in the mines that the 

 great placer deposits of this State arc scarcely scratched after twenty 

 years of mining, and will not be worked out for ages. Here, as in every 

 other business and profession, experience and skill are needed for suc- 

 cess. Most of the failures in mining have arisen from the running of 

 useless tunnels in the wrong places, where intelligent miners would not 

 risk a dollar. Many of them have been occasioned by extravagant 

 expenditures by men who never saw a mine until called to superintend 

 the opening or working of one. We sutor ultra crepidam. Such work 

 should be left to miners. For the development of this great interest 

 cheap and abundant water is needed. Capital judiciously expended in 

 mining and furnishing water facilities could not fail of reward. Not 

 one sixth of the available water of the mountains is diverted to the use 

 of the mining communities. Yet, if you ask the inhabitants of an}- of 

 those counties what is needed to develop the deep mines profitably, and 



