204 Transactions of the 



and flourishing institution established upon a firm basis in this city, 

 which will give employment to a large number of men and a free market 

 for an unlimited quantity of grapes, which might otherwise be a drug 

 on the hands of the grower. 



And right here, lest I forget it in a more appropriate place, I propose 

 to say what would make my own ears tingle, and I fear unduly excite 

 me, should I hear it said by any other than a California!!, viz: that it is 

 a shame — a disgrace — a burning sarcasm upon the intelligence, and 

 industry, and financial common sense of California agriculturists, that in 

 such a country, where dairy products might be mure abundant and 

 secured at Less expense than anywhere else in the land, so many sit 

 down and fold their hands, or roam from place to place looking for " situa- 

 tions " behind the counter, where they may sell tape and calico to lady 

 shoppers, or in some counting room, where they may phiy second fiddle 

 to an assistant bookkeeper's clerk, while we pay for the making and 

 bringing three thousand miles a hundred tons of butter a week — and all 

 this while tens of thousands of acres of as good dairy lands as ever lay 

 outdoor, and as many lowing herds of the best dairy kine unite in calling 

 you young men to marry wives and milk the cows and make the butter 

 and get the money Tor your purse. If you have no capital, take a farm, as 

 the old folks say. •• on shears." and my word for it the clippings of those 

 " shears " will, the first year, enable you to begin to buy, begin to breed, 

 begin to multiply your stock, begin to be an employer, an independent, 

 influential member of society, and a benefactor of the State. 



But I must haste to the point I have put off as long as possible! I 

 cannot escape it. I must -'talk burse " just a little. 



We want horses — the best Of horses — horses of pure blood and easy 

 pace and speedy trot and long endurance. 



When Pope was defeated, and Banks, ignorant of the fact, was march- 

 ing his gallant band into the very jaws of death, and to save them all 

 from utter ruin. Baker, the successor of two who had failed in the 

 attempt, must ride knee deep in Virginia mud, through a pelting storm, 

 a hundred and twenty-four miles in twenty-one consecutive hours, to 

 carry dispatches from the War Departmenl to Hanks, what if there had 

 been no thoroughbred at his service? Or. what if after the first twenty- 

 four miles, and no relay could be found in all McDowell's corps equal to 

 the task — the horse had been a scrub, or a half-breed, would he have 

 resumed and completed the enormous task? Or, when gaunt with 

 ninety-five miles of fasting and foaming be was put to the task of carry- 

 ing his rider through a gap, only twenty yards wide, in a battalion of 

 the enemy's infantry flanked by a hundred of Virginia's best-mounted 

 cavalry, all ready to shower him with bullets — would he have shot 

 through that opening like an arrow, with his rider hugging the side of 

 his neck, and then carried him thirty-five miles further, outstripping 

 those fresh cavalry chargers, if there had been one drop of' cold or 

 impure blood in his veins? Never: Such ordeals are never passed, such 

 triumphs never won. but by pure blood ami careful training. 



And yet of' the pure blood and distinct races of the horse there is, per- 

 haps, among the American people, less knowledge and more humbug 

 than upon any other equally important subject. While we have at least 

 half a dozen distinct varieties of first-rate horses, we pass them by as 

 only "common Canestoga, or Canadian, or Norman, or pacer/' and yet 

 talk, with a great show of learning, about the " English cart horse, the 

 English dray horse, the Cleveland Bay, the Suffolk Punch," etc., which 



