148 REPOKT OF THE SECRETARY OF THE 



productive land. Twenty years ago California was niiknowa 

 as a wheat-growing and wheat-exporting State. Contemplate 

 that immense wheat belt now just looming up on the western 

 horizon, which is west of the Mississippi and north of th& 

 Missouri. Leave out all of the States east of the Mississippi; 

 say nothing of AVisconsin, with her 24,000,000 bushels of 

 wheat; say nothing of Illinois, with her 29,000,000 bushels; 

 say nothing of Indiana, Ohio, and Michigan ; do not mention 

 Kansas or Missouri south of the Missouri river; but confine 

 your attention to Minnesota, Iowa, northern Missouri, Ne- 

 braska, and the territories west of those States, and you will 

 find a coming country rich enough and large enough to raise 

 all the surplus wheat needed to supply the foreign demand. 

 It is this expanding growth of the country which threatens ta 

 ruin the older wheat sections bordering upon the lakes. New 

 England, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, and West Vir- 

 ginia produced 24,000,000 bushels of wheat in 1869 ; Pennsyl- 

 vania and Virginia, 25,000,000; the whole Union raised 

 260,146,000 bushels in 1869. 



FRUIT IN CALIFORNIA. 



Attention has been called to an article publisl^ed in Sau 

 Francisco, which complains of the competition in grain pro- 

 duction, and as it discusses for California the same remedy 

 which I wish to point out for Michigan, its insertion here will 

 be excused: 



From the San Francisco Alta, December 23. 



"We have learned by experience, and we might have known 

 by reasoning without experience, that the production of wheat 

 for exportation, not only cannot enrich our State, but, as con- 

 ducted at present, cannot be permanent. The soil is being 

 exhausted for the sake of a small and brief profit. Our agri- 

 culture depends mainly upon a staple which commands a low 

 and unstable price, and brings us into competition with many 

 other countries, and most of them comparatively poor. Call- 



