INCREASE OF POPULATION. 65 



in tlie Santa Clara valley, (1814,) bis nearest neighbors on the 

 North were the Russians, at Bodega. Eight large ranches cov 

 ered the land lying between San Jose and Los Angeles. There 

 was not a flour mill or a wheeled vehicle on the coast. The 

 people lived on wheat, cracked in mortars, maize, beef, fish and 

 game. One thousand bushels of wheat, the first cargo I have 

 seen mentioned, was shipped from Monterey to South America, 

 prior to 1820. The product of 1874 reached twenty-eight mill 

 ions seven hundred and eighty-four thousand five hundred and 

 seventy-one bushels. 



California, as we see, Is not alone in this wonderful develop 

 ment of her resources. Oregon has some advantages over her 

 for wheat and stock raising, and has improved them well. 

 Both these young States are the reservoirs and sources of a 

 river of breadstuffs which is flowing to the markets of the world 

 in a stream of unequaled magnitude, commensurate with the 

 scale of operations which have produced them. As we need to 

 see the mammoth trees, not once, but many times, before the 

 mind takes in the grandeur of their dimensions, so one must 

 grow into a realization of the proportions of our agricultural 

 industry and its requirements. From 1848 to 1862 California 

 obtained her flour from Chili and the East. In 1856 and 1857 

 she imported one hundred and twenty thousand barrels from 

 Oregon, and thirty thousand from the Atlantic States. These 

 importations did not cease entirely, though they were dimin 

 ished for two or three years, when the two years drought again 

 raised them to seventy-two thousand nine hundred and thirty- 

 six barrels from Eastern ports, forty-three thousand three 

 hundred and forty-seven from Chili, and nineteen thousand 

 five hundred and twenty-nine from Oregon. From that time 

 the tide began to set in the other direction. 



Some remarkable facts stand out prominently in connection 

 with the Pacific slope States and Territories. First of all, it 

 appears that the population increased, between 1850 and 1870, 

 no less than three hundred and eighty-seven percent., or nearly 

 quintupled. The- increase during the latter ten years was not 

 at as high a rate as during the former, but still it mounts to the 

 very respectable figure of fift3 T -seven per cent. Between 1850 

 and 1860 the number of improved acres increased more than 

 nine-fold; between 1860 and 1870 the increase was equal to 

 almost one hundred and fifteen, per cent.; and the number in 

 5 



