132 ANNALS OF STATE GKANGE OF CALIFORNIA. 



burg Grange; J. A. Clark, Elinira Grange; J. C. Merryfield and 

 Mrs. Merry-field, Dixon Grange; J. M. Hamilton, Guenoc Grange; 

 J. M. Mayfield, Yountville Grange; J. J. Hicok, Grand Island 

 Grange; L. W. &quot;Walker, Petaluma Grange; N. L. Allen, Salinas 

 * Grange; J. W. A. Wright, Turlock Grange; G. B. Crane and Mrs. 

 G. B. Crane, St. Helena Grange; I. G. Gardner and Mrs. I. G. 

 Gardner, Greyson Grange; B. V. &quot;Weeks, Pescadero Grange; J. H. 

 Hegeler and Mrs. J. H. Hegeler, Bodega Grange; A. T. Dewey and 

 Mrs. A. T. Dewey, Temescal Grange. 



N. &quot;W. Garretson, representing the Worthy Master of the 

 National Grange, opened the session with an eloquent and in 

 structive address. He said: 



It seems but as yesterday, (so short is the time,) since your now 

 fair and beautiful State was unreclaimed, unsought and unvalued 

 but for its gold. Its civilization was confined to mining camps, and 

 its bread and fruit supplied from distant fields. Very soon, how 

 ever, it was demonstrated that the capabilities of these valleys for 

 producing the cereals were great, and their adaptation to fruit cult 

 ure unrivaled. The effect of this was, not only to change the 

 dreams of emigrants to this land of perpetual summer and sunshine, 

 but it marked a change also in their character. Women, the refining 

 guardians of our race, now swelled the caravan that stretched across 

 the plains and poured over the mountain ranges or that landed from 

 the crowded steamers. Men and women with strong arms and brave 

 hearts were now coming to make homes and plant upon the Pacific 

 Coast a new civilization. Your experiences in reaching California 

 then, though bitter at the time, are garnered with the traveled past, 

 and serve you now a store of wonders to repeat to those who now 

 cross the continent, borne in palaces of luxuriant ease. 



I am presuaded that in no State have the industries found so 

 &quot; rapid a cterelopment as in California. At a single bound she takes 

 rank as the first wheat-producing State in the &quot;Union, exporting last 

 year to England alone not less than five hundred &quot;thousand tons. 

 While the products of your gold fields have been great, and have 

 largely swelled the treasuries of the world, the product of your 

 wheat fields, under judicious tillage, will be far greater, affording a 

 more abiding wealth, and promising a far more stable prosperity. 

 The fertility of your soil is equalled only by the enterprise and in 

 telligence of its tillers. 



I utter these words as the sum of my observations since I have 

 come among you. I think I see in the farmers of California a dis 

 cerning intelligence not so general elsewhere. With this charac 

 teristic attribute, these men might have successfully prosecuted 

 almost any business pursuit; but seeing the wondrous capabilities 

 for profitable production offered by the diversity of soil and climate 

 in this summer-land, their hearts responded to the invitations of na 

 ture, to the comfort and enjoyment of farm life, to that pursuit 

 above all others, God-given and ennobling Agriculture. 



Little did they dream while their thoughts were given to this 

 work, that many of those they fed were combining for the impover- 



