262 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan., 



classes, and that every effort of seesaw reform is apt to aggravate 

 the evil, by causing all hands to look for government help. 



What time have we to consider the malign growth of public 

 farming by which feed-pipes are changed to waste-pipes, and the 

 golden calf we worship in the State becomes a worthless old cow 

 with a trick of sucking herself ? 



Before we are done, and passing a hundred opportunities of 

 exposing my ignorance, among other and very important examples 

 of the conflict of civilization wiLh its waste, I want to excite a little 

 thought about one of our filth diseases in particular, and one that 

 has recently become wofuUy prevalent in our beloved Common. 

 wealth. One also which some medical men wag their heads over 

 now-a-days as ^'a great mystery." I allude to ''the shakes." 



My personal knowledge of this distemper is but small. Being 

 the only person exempt in my district I have to refer to experience, 

 years ago in California, where I had a single brief "shake," but 

 where several of my comrades passed through the chilly crisis, at 

 night, much to my astonishment, in my arms. 



It might be diflBcult to prove such a thing in court, but I have 

 a belief, that man — present company always excepted — is the nas- 

 tiest of living animals. 



For instance — let me tell you what the young community of 

 Sacramento, composed of the "flower " of numerous States, did in 

 eighteen hundred and forty-nine. The river at that point runs 

 between high, bluff banks in the plain while the water is low. So 

 it was diflBcult of approach with buckets or teams, and water for 

 city use was pumped from the bridge over the narrow outlet of the 

 slough — pronounced slew, in the dialect of that time. It may be 

 interesting to know that the present speaker let himself for $8.00 

 per day to run the old log-pump taken out of some vessel, that, 

 with two or three hogsheads, fitted to wheels and shafts for as 

 many single horses, constituted the machinery for the city water- 

 works of that period. 



This "slew" was Lake Sutter of the maps, an oblong cove, just 

 above the new city of canvas, calico, and boards, running at right 

 angles with the river, possibly fed by springs, and covering per- 

 haps an acre or two. Its steep banks were thinly wooded, and 

 these became at once the popular retiring-place of the town, and 

 completely plastered with filth. 



Perhaps I should say, to the credit of the other sex, that Sacra- 



