THE MONTHLY BULLETIN. -±99 



of wine and table grapes had become an epidemic in 1901, 1902 and 

 1903, that overproduction of sweet wines was certain to follow. In 

 1903 Percy T. Morgan, president of the California Wine Association, 

 in a clear and able paper read before the Frnit Growers' Convention in 

 this very town of Fresno, told us all just about what was going to 

 happen. Who heeded his warning? Very few. 



For four years after his note of warning prices remained high. 

 Farmers and speculators kept on planting, ignoring the fact that sev- 

 enty thousand acres of young grapevines were quietly getting ready to 

 suddenly pour a flood of crops on the unprepared market. If the same 

 facts that were presented by Mr. Morgan to one fruit growers' conven- 

 tion in a ten-minute paper could have been put before the farmers at 

 all the farmers' institutes held in the interior valleys for a year or two, 

 by an agricultural economist from the University of California or else- 

 where, probably the lesson would have been understood and much 

 unwise planting and losses of millions of dollars been averted. 



Most of our farmers are newcomers, not accustomed to studying the 

 economics of horticulture and viticulture. Such knowledge must come 

 to them through farmers' institutes or through the able agricultural 

 journals of California, or through their county horticultural commis- 

 sioners, in so far as thej^ may be men of sound economic ability; but 

 we need some starting point where the economic problems of Cali- 

 fornia's varied and intricate agriculture and horticulture may be 

 investigated; where young men may be trained to study not only crop 

 jn'oduction but crop marketing, not only tree planting but rational 

 choice of varieties to plant. 



The State Commission of Horticulture has made a good beginning in 

 the collection of crop reports and horticultural statistics. This is useful 

 and commendable; but unless by ample financial support the State 

 Commission shall become a great deal more than a state bureau of 

 entomology and quarantine ; unless its work shall be broadened so as to 

 help the growers solve their present and future economic problems, then 

 we must look elsewhere. Perhaps, in any event, we should ask the" 

 University of California to begin by establishing a chair of agriculture 

 and horticultural economics. 



Already in California we have some thousands of fake "professors" 

 of agricultural economics, who work, not for a salary and not for their 

 health, but for the commission of five per cent or more on the land they 

 sell. The new settler gets much of his agricultural and horticultural 

 ciope from these optimistic gentlemen, sometimes at a dear price. 



I always appreciate the optimism of Mr. Seagraves, the irrepressible 

 colonization agent of the Santa Fe railroad. Last week he assured an 

 a.udience of a hundred and forty thousand people, through the columns 

 of the Country Gentleman, of the opportunity of their lifetime — 



"You can buy desirable farms with water in the San Joaquin 

 Valley at from $125 to $150 an acre and these farms, properly 

 cultivated and planted, will return to you as much as Mr. Casalegno 

 received from his land. 



