450 RESOUECES OF CALIFORNIA. 



body can so safely be trusted to get all the gold out of a tract 

 of land as the fee-simple owner of it. 



The federal government has refused to sell the minei-al 

 lands to the state, and the surveyor-general has instructed 

 his deputies not to " sectionize" the land in the mineral dis- 

 tricts, or within several miles of where any miners are at work. 

 The truth is, that a large part of the land in the mining re- 

 gion contains so little gold that it never can pay the miner, but 

 is well suited for agricultural and horticultural purposes. Cali- 

 fornians confidently expect that some of the finest fruits and 

 wines of our state — and that is as much as to say of the whole 

 world — wall be produced in the minmg counties, within five 

 years from the present time ; and the government should pur- 

 sue such a policy as will encourage the occupation and cultiva- 

 tion of all the land suitable for such purposes. 



If the sale w^ere once determined upon, undoubtedly difii- 

 culties would arise as to the manner of carrying it into execu- 

 tion ; but these would be of little import, as compared with 

 the evils caused by the present system. The wiiole mineral 

 district should be surveyed at once, and sold in lots to persons 

 wh^ will live on, or work them, varying in size, according 

 to location and supposed mineral wealth, from one hundred 

 and sixty to eighty, forty, twenty, ten, five, two and a half, 

 and one and a quarter acres. Perhaps it w^ould be advisable 

 to grant at first no lots where many miners may be at work 

 within a small space. Large lots of ten, twenty, and forty 

 acres, now^ unoccupied, and which w^ould long remain unoccu- 

 pied under the present system, would find abundant buyers 

 should the government propose to grant the fee-simple. 



The ofier of the mineral lands of the state, cpmprising about 

 10,000,000 acres, for sale, would present one of the greatest op- 

 oortunities in the world for large numbers to secure great and 

 C'^rt'iin wealth at a small immediate outlay ; and not only every 

 man now in the country, but every one w^ho has been here, 

 would exert himself to the utmost to become the owner of a 

 tract of land, the mines of which would probably clothe him 



